Movie review

  • 2007-05-02
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Because I Said So
Spider-Man 3

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
In the animated feature "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," the adventures of the popular ninja warrior turtle teens continue. Leonardo, Rafaello, Donatello and Michelangelo reunite under the guidance of their sensei master Splinter to save the world. Industrialist Max Winters has revived four ancient stone warriors and instructed them to capture thirteen monsters who have been terrorizing New York. Winters needs to send the monsters back to another dimension so he can lift the curse of immortality which he has borne for millenia. But the stone warriors have diabolical plans of their own. Enter turtles to the rescue. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is a decent little kids' flick about brotherly love. It contains lots of blockbuster-like fight sequences and masterful computer animation which should result in plenty of oohs and aahs. The stone warriors look like gothic Roman gladiators from the future, and the thirteen monsters are vividly imaginative creations. As each monster is introduced one-by-one, I kept wondering how the animators kept managing to outdo themselves. There's one Matrix-like scene that's especially memorable too. The film isn't one of the smarter or wittier animated films that I've seen. But on the whole, it's an entertaining enough outing for kids and parents alike.
( Sherwin Das )


Because I Said So
In "Because I Said So" Diane Keaton plays Daphne Wilder, an overbearing mother with three daughters one of whom, Milly (Mandy Moore), is chronically single. Milly is unlucky in love but, luckily, she's cute-as-a-button. (Too bad for us that she's dumb-as-a-doorknob). Afraid that Milly will end up alone like her, Daphne surreptitiously takes out an online personal ad and selects a seemingly perfect candidate to woo her daughter. It was a strange feeling watching this particularly mediocre film while the two teenage girls sitting beside me continually squealed with unbridled delight. From an anthropological perspective, I found that watching the teens' reactions was much more interesting than watching the film. In one scene Milly multi-tasks by talking on her mobile phone and crossing the street while having one hell of a time trying to separate her staticky dress from her petticoat. And, oh my God, there is soooo much static that there's also a balloon stuck to the seat of her dress. Judging from the girls' response, this two-minute scene is the most hilarious thing since glitter lipstick. Much of this film has vacant and shallow characters blabbing away monosyllabically into their mobile phones, and many of the mother-daughter bonding scenes occur while retail shopping. I can see why all this might be appealing to some teenage girls. But, unfortunately, there's very little here for adults. 
( Sherwin Das )

Spider-Man 3
Having greatly enjoyed the first two Spider-Man movies, I was intrigued to see what sort of spin director Sam Raimi would give the third installment. Against my expectations, "Spider-Man 3" turns out to be the best one yet. Having confronted the challenge of combining superhero duties with student poverty and existential anxiety in "Spider-Man 2," this time Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) has to confront his darker side when a strange black blob forms a symbiotic bond with him. The nefarious blob takes over Spidey after arriving on earth on the back of a comet. If it sounds stupid that's because it is. But that's the secret of the Spider-Man films. Director Sam Raimi makes the cartoon-like world of Spider-Man seem like gritty neo-realism compared to other superhero movies. To complicate matters, there's a new villain Spidey has to deal with in the form of Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church). On the run from the police after escaping from prison, Marko falls into a sand pit in a particle research laboratory and becomes a sort of amorphous sand man after being caught up in an experiment. Marko is also accused of being the real killer of Parker's beloved Uncle Ben, which makes the black-suited, bad-sided Spidey all the more determined to kick his sandy butt. Spidey is also having major problems with Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst). He's so carried away by the adulation of the NY public that he fails to notice when she gets sacked from a Broadway musical after her first performance. Feeling let down and dejected, she seeks solaces in Spidey's arch enemy Harry (James Franco), leading to yet more webs of deceit and confusion. "Spider-Man 3" has the edge over the other Spider-Man films because it perfectly combines its soap opera-style melodrama with breathtaking action sequences. Some critics have complained about the bad dialogue but I think it's extremely cleverly written. You can almost see the speech bubbles above the characters' heads when they speak, but the acting is strong enough to elevate the movie as a whole into its own self-contained reality. I, for one, actually find the Spidey-Mary Jane saga extremely touching. There are also some genuinely comic moments in "Spider-Man 3" just to make sure it doesn't get too self-important, as is sadly often the case with superhero movies. But Spider-Man is all-too-human and that's why he makes such a fascinating and fallible superhero. 
( Tim Ochser )

 

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