A funny, and thought provoking animation

I had to drag my girlfriend and my mates to go see this - i was only going to see it purely because the character in the adverts seemed hilarious. I was thoroughly entertained, yet also amazed at the depth of what is basically a cartoon for kids. On a superficial level, brilliant graphics and rendering with simply superb textures and lighting that make the visuals close to life-like, and in addition to this excellent simulated camera focus effects with appropriate blurring and out of focus effects depending on the scene that would usually only be seen in traditionally shot camera movies. May not be immediately noticed, but if you pay attention to it you may find it enriching the whole cinematic experience. And of course for the kids, characters that are somehow endearing and easy to empathise and connect with given the lack of dialogue - testament to superb animation and the detailed thought processes in making up the characters and their traits and how to convey them without relying on speech.

However the real intelligence in this movie, and what makes this so appealing to adults, and subtly educational to kids, is the references to the numerous current issues that dominate today. Climate change, globalisation, capitalism amongst others. It maybe easy to criticize disney for being hypocritical in attempting to educate about such issues, but i can only applaud them in not just making an animation which is almost certainly going to make them a lot of money, but also at least attempts to educate and make kids (and adults) think of some of the issues that affect us today and will continue to do so in the future. Lets hope intelligent film making continues in the animated genre. Confused? just go watch it for yourselves. Brilliant movie - even my girlfriend cant wait for the dvd :)

Not a fan, but my 9 year old is!

My then 8 year old dragged me along to see this. I'm a cynical, long-in-the-tooth 42 year old who doesn't have time to watch adverts much less a super hero movie. So yes, I found the story implausible and far-fetched, and would have fallen asleep if the music wasn't so loud......but my son LOVED it - and is now hassling me for the DVD which will be in his Xmas stocking.

So, if you're buying for a pre-teen they'll love it, but stick in the mud accountants like me won't!

The dust she sprinkles still has great potency.

J.M. Barrie first created the character Tinker Bell to appear in a play (Peter Pan) and then in a novel (Peter and Wendy) but her worldwide popularity is no doubt largely the result of her appearance in the Disney film that first appeared in 1953, Peter Pan. Tinker Bell later became the official Disney"mascot" in versions of the television series variously known as Walt Disney Presents, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, The Wonderful World of Disney, and The Magical World of Disney. The point is, she has been a major entertainment figure for more than 50 years and, at one point, was so popular that she received more fan mail than all others, including Marilyn Monroe.

Of course, children could not care less about her history but they continue to be delighted by her charm and energy. Tinker Bell is by nature a creature whose greatest talent is to"tinker" with whatever needs to be repaired; rather than pots and pans, she uses fairy dust that enables children to fly. Children love to explore secret places as when following Alice down a rabbit hole, or Peter Pan and the Darling children through an open bedroom window and then high above London at night, sailing with Geppetto, Figaro, and Cleo into Monstro's stomach, or visiting Pixie Hollow where Tinker Bell and the other fairies live. As in countless other Disney features, the production values in this film are outstanding, the music is seamlessly integrated with the plot developments, and the humor is appropriately playful. Also, I think the running time (78 minutes) is just right for younger children.

No need to list the special features. Others have listed them and they do add substantial value, although the younger grandchildren with whom I see them seem interested only in the games whereas I much prefer the background material. Some animated features (including the Disney classics as well as several produced by DreamWorks and Pixar) have an almost unlimited shelf-life, retaining great appeal throughout and among various age groups. I doubt if that will be true of Tinker Bell or, for that matter, Peter Pan. However, that said, I think that those who have seen it, as they grow older, will still enjoy seeing it again and again with younger companions if only to observe their delight. For me, the fairy dust has lost none of its potency after all these years...and never will. How wonderful!

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Holy ****

I was looking to watch a mindless Hollywood action film tonight. I am halfway through this and my word... wooden, devoid of imagination, unrealistic to the point of parody. Please... what offensive stupidity. What brain numbing crapulence. I'd like to say I'm lost for words but... I'm not. Please can someone return the 60 mins of my life it's taken to finally turn this rubbish off. Ugh.

Update: this film was so awful out of curiosity I finished it. And my my my... How entertaining it finally gets! Especially the sub-Matrix style finale. I can imagine the positive reviewers probably loved this exercise in low budget, B-movie slaughter. I will give the main character some credit for the creative way he uses a bad guys brain whilst shooting the place up. Its so ridiculous its actually an art form in Hollywood vacuousness. If you check your brain at the door and fill the hole with lukewarm custard then maybe, just maybe you'll be titillated.

I thought about upgrading my review to 2 stars just so more people can be educated in how far Hollywood action films have fallen. But I lost the will to interact at this point.

Catatonic.

Starts well, goes downhill fast

This has some funny bits & good scenes near the start but it starts tripping over itself and messing everything up. Not recommended.

Not for Science Fiction, or Star Wars fans.

I tried to open minded about this film when I first went to the cinema, determining that"I'm a star wars fan, and no matter how bad it is, it's still Star Wars."

That feeling lasted about um... a second and a half from the start of the film. It started off fine with the,"A long time ago in a galaxy far far away." I smiled, prepared myself for the classic theme and it... never came. I had been told it was 'remixed' beforehand, but I was expecting something not too different, the new composer didn't even keep the first 4 notes.

Then we move onto the 'Opening Crawl' - which didn't exist. Another staple of Star Wars, even found in the games, gone, poofed completely. It was replaced with a narrator speaking over a kind of WW2 'news reel'. A few minutes into it and already the film has lost all its feel of being Star Wars, by no doubt intentional design decisions. In my book, if the writers/directors/producers etctera intentionally changed something, and it turned out badly, it's still bad.

It got worse, the opening battle could have potentially been something good and enjoyable to watch, instead it was as if it had been played in fast forward, I could almost imagine the 'Benny Hill' theme being played in the background.

Admittedly, I was a bit biased towards the 'art style' before hand so I thought, if I'm going to write a review on it, I'll avoid mentioning it as it would be rather unfair and not truly neutral. So I will avoid commenting on it except to say, that it gets worse. When Supreme Chancellor Palpatine walked into a scene, his style was seemed to be entirely based on a... bobblehead toy. There is 'stylised' drawing (which I would define by the early 1990's Batman cartoons) and then there's 'caricature' - Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I felt was the latter. Additionally, the animation was jerky, possibly as a reference to the 'Thunderbirds' puppets. In my opinion, it didn't work, it just made it look even worse.

The film is a childrens oriented film, and I'm perfectly happy to accept that. In honesty, this was the strongest part of the film. The new Padawan was someone that children could enjoy watching and identify with. There was even some humour involving her and"Stinky the Hutt" that could be enjoyed by the little 'uns. However, I think in trying to appeal to children, they actually managed to make the dialogue even worse than Attack of The Clones and going on to insult the intelligence of the kids in the audience to boot. A typical conversation, which was repeated several times in the films follows.

Character A:"Jabba the Hutts son has been kidnapped."
Character B:"The Jedi Order must go and rescue Jabba the Hutts son."
Character A:"If the Seperatists rescue Jabba the Hutts son first we'll lose the war."
Character A:"Then it's agreed, we must rescue Jabba the Hutts son from being kidnapped."

While this conversation was on-going (and going, and going), the characters tones would randomly change from low to high to low again. I believe, when Obi-wan was speaking, this was an attempt to copy his voice from episode III, it didn't work. The only character that avoided this was the Padawan, Ashkoja, which, truth be told, made her scenes are more watchable than any others.

Finally, a good word about it, scenes that didn't have any characters in them, for example space and 'landscape' scenes did look particularly good and demonstrate the potential for how enjoyable the film COULD have been. However, due to several strange, strange design decisions that seemed only to have been changed for the sake of being changed, I would recommend against even renting this film. If you must see it, wait for it to come on television.

Not quite as crap as Golden Compass - but close

Very poor adaptation of a good book, with some appalling casting. De Niro as a gay pirate?! Why on earth did they think that would work? and Gervais playing himself yet again (ie annoying). Will appeal to children, who nontheless will have little clue as to whats going on for most of the film - the disjointed plot will leave them going eh? what? why? a lot. A bit of humour from the dead brothers saves it from total direness.

a lot of fun!

hellboy 2 is a lot of fun, if a bit on the predictable side script wise.
visually astonishing, and surely a shoe in for the visual effects oscar next year. the highlight is the superb troll market.
while you can pretty much guess how the story is going to end up, the creatures and monsters on display are absolutely extraordinary. del toro is a genius, and while not quite on a par with pan's labyrinth, this and the original hellboy are his best hollywood movies.
performance wise, it's excellent. ron perlman superb as hellboy, and there isn't a bad performance in the film, even though luke goss is essentially reprising his bad guy role from blade 2, he does what's required very well and makes for a good villain. it's also surprisingly funny and very toungue in cheek, and just to warn, it might be a bit much for young kids. while not as strong as the dark knight, there are several scenes in here that question what the bbfc are doing. i personally think they're just trying to make as many films possible a 12a just to sell tickets. i think a 12 on it's own would have been enough. oh, and anyone who hates fantasy or comic book movies or who has no imagination or sense of humour might want to give this a miss as well. very enjoyable!

Beginning of something special

There's no need for me to tell you that this was 1 of the most successful superhero film this year. Dominated the box office & for once that girls seems to enjoy (according to statistics). Anyway, for those of you who didn't know, this movie ties along with `The Incredible Hulk', but this film is supposed to take place BEFORE `TIH', dunno why they released it here backwards.

Speaking of `The Incredible Hulk', `Iron Man' is equally, if not better, good as the green monster movie.

The movie has humour, action, terrific visual effects (making a bloke in a metal suit doesn't seem ridiculously impossible, but believable) & of course a good story. Now I'm not going into what the plot is about (as you may already know it or the fact you can read from dozens of other reviews which makes mine more repetitive), I'm more focusing on the features of the Blu-ray.

- Hall of Armour - Detailed look at 'Iron Man' (Mark 1 - 3) & 'Iron Monger' suit.
- The Invincible Iron Man - 47mins documentary on 'Iron Man's history & origin (comic book)
- 11 Deleted/extended scenes
- BDlive.
- I am Iron Man - 149mins of making/production of `Iron Man'
- Wired: The visual effects of Iron Man - self explanatory, seeing the CGI of `Iron Man', where we follow 3 visual effects company as each to their own creates different part of `Iron Man' e.g. 1 focuses on Mark I suit design & another on Mark II & it's vision. This lasts for 27mins.
- The actor's process - Robert Downey Jr. & Jeff Bridges rehearsing/discussing a scene. This is over 4mins.
- The onion"wildly popular Iron Man trailer to be adopted into full-length film" - to be blatantly honest, this is kinda the worst feature on the Blu-ray, it's basically a mocking joke of fans who loved the movie trailer but are concerned that the film will suck. I'm not sure they based this on a true story (as in real people who felt that the film will disappoint & preferred just the trailers), but you can easily tell it's a fake news report. This lasts over 2mins.
- Theatrical trailers - 4 trailers: a teaser, a theatrical trailer & 2 international trailers.
- Galleries - 4 types: concept art, tech, unit photography & posters.

My only complaint about the features is that it doesn't have audio commentary; I was so expecting that Jon Favreau at least do a solo commentary for the film, but nothing. That's disappointing. Otherwise this is a great Blu-ray to add to your collection.

Not season 1, but still good

This series started off with the same quality as season 1, and got me hooked again. However, shame to say, this was one of the shows heavily affected by the writers strike in the US. The start of the series starts slow and builds just as season 1, but ends up speeding up far too quickly by the conclusion for my liking. I got to episode 10 thinking we were half way through, only to realise there are only 2 episodes to go. It all felt a bit rushed. In effect then this is really only half a series, and expect that season 3 will pick up where this left off. Some great new characters, so looking forward to Season 3

4 stars for movie in general, but at least 100 stars for David Jason's portrayal of Rincewind!

I preordered this DVD as soon as I heard it had become available, and just received it in the mail yesterday. It doesn't seem to be available at Amazon here in the states yet, so I'm extremely happy that I have a region free DVD player.
Anyway, I've only watched this movie once so far, so will edit my review if further viewings change my opinion in any way, but here are my initial thoughts.
As a blind Discworld fan, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered audio description on the Hog Father DVD. The Colour of Magic also has audio description, but somehow, it just wasn't quite as good, best example, the credits were never read, so apart from David Jason and Sean Astin, I couldn't readily place any of the other characters. I read that Nigel Planer was in this, but I never recognized his voice.
Never-the-less, I was extremely greatful for the audio description that was provided.
The Colour of magic didn't seem to be quite as faithful to its source material as Hogfather was, but considering that this movie was trying to cover 2 books instead of just one, this is quite understandable and so far as I'm concerned, forgiveable. This morning, I started rereading The Colour of Magic, so I will be able to determine more acuratly what bits were missing and whether or not any of them were genuinely important. Personally, I would have liked it if a little less time was spent on the scenes with the wizards at UU, and more time put into Rincewind and Twoflower's adventures, but that's just me.
In spite of my minor complaints, I'd rate the movie as a whole with 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. I'm giving a 5 star review, however, for one reason: David Jason. His portrayal of Rincewind, at least in my humble opinion, was simply spectacular!
Bottom line: The Colour of Magic was well worth the money I paid for it, and I'm already looking forward to watching it again.

BestHow about making it one?

The Phantom Menace is boring. The final sabre fight between Obi Wan, Qui Gon and a Sith lord is the only part worth watching. Attack of the Clones is a"we're back in business" film, which as the times go by, has come to be a fine B-class. Revenge of the Sith could've been better. There's too much fire in the background and too many talented actors playing puppets. I think that George, opposite to what he's saying, has got something to do about it yet:)

Memories and future excitement!

I was seven when Star Wars first came out in the cinema, and ever since, a full 31 years, I have been hooked on the films. Now I introduce my son to them, and yaaay! Here we go again! All the memories flood back, and there is his newfound excitement adding to my enjoyment of what had to be one of the best ever trilogies put up on the big screen.

It isn't just the movies, but having the option to watch either the digitally remastered version, or the older version that I remember better, is a great thing. From the special effects, to the fantastic cast, the scene setting opening credits, with that amazing musical sound track, the weird and wonderful aliens, right through to the pithy relationship of Leia and Han, these were truly fantastic movies, and should be in everyone's collection. Not just for the now, and those of us who remember them originally, but for the future, when we can delight in introducing others to the eternal fight of good against evil, and the story of determination, love, and hope that these movies represent.

Now, where did I leave my popcorn...

Brilliant, just Brilliant!

This is definetley the best series yet. Brilliant cast, brilliant acting, brilliant series! The whole series had everything. Humour, history, the doctor finds his daughter, he re-meets davros and the dalek; it has everything. The Doctor's assistant is Donna from the Christmas Special 2006. I thought she did superbly, better than expected. People who say this is expensive, that is partly true, but you get all the episodes (if you bought the 4 seperate DVD's the cost would be £47.92) and you get the christmas special and confidential, so it is worth it.
So I recommend you get this and you will enjoy it!

I don't get what people aren't finding funny...

The plots of the last three films have become rather ludicrous in comparison to those of the earliest series (1 & 2), but we would only expect more extravagance from feature length films, and needless to say, this is a science fiction show, surely we're not pining for overused sitcom formulae? (I will cite classic episodes such as 'Xmas story', 'Time keeps on slipping', 'Godfellas', 'A pharoah to remember' and 'Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles' to demonstrate that Futurama has at no point been entirely believable).
I will concede, however, that the fantasy part of the plot is somewhat of a science-fiction stretch in order to include the D & D parody and does feel rather too tacked on being only the last half hour or so of the film. The parody itself is less D & D and more, as others before me have said, the Return of the King. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The laughs, as always, come thick and fast, and I think the writers have worked hard not to pander to mainstream humour and to put in the far more sophisticated lunacy of the Futurama we all know, for example David X Cohen's dubbed 'Fry not remembering how to talk' (in reference to, 'Bender, look, it's that guy you are!' - Ep 306).
As a film, it is fantastically (no pun intended) directed, with great use of colour and balance of 2D and 3D, brilliantly acted and a great watch whether or not you find it funny. (N.B, you should find it funny).

An enchanting family movie

This is a family movie, it is basicly a fairytale. If that put you off avoid the movie you probably won't enjoy it. The performances are all solid particularly that of Freddie Highmore, at least I think it was him I didn't check before writing this review. The effects are all solid if sometimes unspectacular.
The set up is simple, family move to a new home and find out there is some dark mystery yadda yadda yadda. Much like many horror movies in fact but there isn't much here to scare kids too much, just enough to make it effective. The film stands alone very well so there is no need for a sequel but also there could very well be a follow on story.

Such a tasteless disappointment

When it came out there was a great advertising and promotion campaign. Yet it did not fulfill its promises. One more survival film, you will say. Maybe but I am afraid it is more serious than that. One more epidemic film. Yes for sure, but yet it is deeper than that. One more zombie and living dead film then. Absolutely, but the disappointment comes from farther than that. The film uses three very common forms and it could have intertwined them and twisted them in a new creative way. But with one character and a dog, you do not go that far. In fact it is the whole argument of Stephen King's The Stand. The super flu, the dying of everyone, the survival of a few. But Stephen King remains human and the two antagonistic camps are human survivors and then they represent the two opposite impulses of the human species: to fight and kill to survive against others, and to organize collectively to survive with others. In this film the survivors are good humans and all the others are bad mutants. Badness in man is thus not human but antihuman. That is very naïve indeed, especially when we understand the epidemic was caused by the irresponsible experiments of one doctor on thousands of people with genetically manipulated viruses. It is this vision of good humans attacked from outside by some who are no longer human at all that makes the film poor and even weak. Evil is not outside. Evil is inside. Anyone who says the reverse is just a blind man. Then the plot is no plot because we know what it is going to be. There is no surprise and no psychological death. And the dramatic events here and there are defused by too much disbelief to suspend. How did the woman arrive in Manhattan, how did she escape the house, how did she drive out of Manhattan, how did she know where to go? And many other questions like those. Then the legend becomes a fable and a weak one at that. Too bad because the theme could have been better and the author behind, Matheson, is supposed to be better than that.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Not all season 4!

Watch out... You are not actually getting all of season 4 in this box set... This is just really half a season... Very deceptive!

A Masterpiece of Cinematic Animation

Each time I have seen a film from Pixar Studio, I have been impressed not only with its animation, but excellent plot too. This time, however, Pixar Studio has rendered a true cinematic animation masterpiece, one which should be recognized as memorable as the great Walt Disney films of the 1930s and 1940s. A masterpiece which ought to appeal to kids of all ages. In"Wall - E" Pixar has a spellbinding example - maybe the first - of a romantic science fiction thriller that lacks a dull moment, even though much of the film lacks substantial dialogue. So who cares whether the robot Wall - E can speak fluent English; audiences will recognize him as an admirable and lovable creature, whose very actions remind me at least of Charlie Chaplin's dull-witted tramp (Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised at all if this was the intention of Pixar Studio's animators and writers.).

Centuries after humanity has fled a severely over-polluted Earth for the relatively clean sanctuary of interstellar space, Wall - E toils alone as the very last trash compactor robot, in the deserted ruins of what seems to be New York City. Then one day Wall - E's fate is literally sent from the Heavens, with the arrival of a strange new robot. What follows will truly delight the hearts and cheer the souls of children of all ages. Older"children" may grasp some of the subtle sociological and political references scattered throughout the film, but younger ones will recognize that this is a film focused primarily on the themes of friendship, love and romance. A film that I am certain is destined to become a major landmark in the annals of cinematic animation; one that is a masterpiece already.