Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Rated PG for fantasy violence

Starring Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, Will Poulter, Ben Barnes, Liam Neeson, Simon Pegg

Set a year after the previous film, Lucy and Edmund are stuck in Cambridge staying with their annoying stuck-up and self-centered cousin Eustace. Older siblings Susan and Peter are off traveling in America with the family but make mention of the family being reunited once World War II is over.

Bored one day, Lucy notices a painting of a ship that looks very Narnian. Soon her and Edmund get locked in the room with Eustance, water begins pooring out of the painting, seeming to drown them, however when they break for air they are rescued in the middle of the see by former Prince and now King Caspian and brought about his magestic ship The Dawn Treader. Caspian explains it has been 3 years in Narnia-time since they had last met and that he is on a journey find 7 missing Lords that were banished during his evil uncle's reign. Lucy and Edmund are up for the adventure and thrilled to tag along while Eustace does nothing but complain and act as an annoying nusciance.

After visiting the Lone Islands, where the 7 Lords were last believed to have been, Caspian, Lucy, Edmund and Eustace are all captured by the slave traders who run the island and learn that some of the slaves are sent by boatloads into the ocean and sacrificed by a mysterious green mist. Our heros are rescused by the remaining crew and set off to find the 7 magic swords of the Lords as it's believed that by combining them that the evil green mist can be stopped and that the 7 Lords had set out to do so but were unable to complete the task.

On their journey each of our main characters are tested - Lucy struggles with insecurity and desperately wants to be just like her beautiful sister Susan; Caspian struggles with living up to being the king his father was; Edmund struggles with having to answer to leadership and follow orders from Caspian; Eustace struggles to just be a nice person in general. Each one will have to overcome their struggles within and make sacrifics in order to defeat to the evil mysterious green mist.

While the previous Narnia film - Prince Caspian - was a bit action-packed and violent while straying quite a bit from the books and received many mixed reviews, Dawn Treader brings back the fun of the first film. It's got fantasy and magical talking creatures (Simon Pegg does an excellent job as Reepicheep - Caspian's talking, fighting mouse sidekick - this time around).

Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is good fantasy fun on the high seas for the whole family to enjoy!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1

Rated PG13 for fantasy violence, some scary images, brief sensuality

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter

Taking place very shortly after the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Order of the Phoenix prepares to move Harry from his aunt and uncle's home to the magical realm on the eve of his 17th birthday. They must act quickly though as Voldemort and his Death Eater followers are hoping to intercept and bring Harry to Voldemort so that he may finish him off.

Rather than return to Hogwarts for their final year, Harry, Ron and Herimoine decide it is of upmost importance for Harry to finish what Dumbledore had started - finding and destroying the Horcruxes that Voldemort had hidden fragments of his soul into in order to make himself immortal. Similar to Frodo and Sam's journey in Lord of the Rings, this search wears our trio thick and thin, often testing their loyality not only to the task set before them but their loyalty to each other. It doesn't help that the Death Eaters are after Harry and will stop at nothing to capture him for Lord Voldemort.

As I'm sure parents have by now realized, this series is not for young children as the movies (and the books) have gotten darker and darker with each one, this being the darkest of them yet. Also, not in the book, is a brief scene of sensuality that is used when Ron and Harry try to destroy a Horcruxe. I understand the reason behind it, as it was supposed to distract Ron, but regardless, parents who let their kids read the book might be a bit surprised by this particular change in the script.

Compared to previous film adaptions of this beloved series, this one sticks pretty close to the book. The book itself was very dark and the movie captures that very well. At the start of both the film and book, a beloved character is killed off the bat, setting the tone of what's to come. I also recall in certain parts of the book, the way the "new" magical government is being run (under a puppet of Lord Voldemort's), "mudbloods" (those wizards who are "muggle born") are being sentenced and tried and treated like Jews in the holocust - a very scary subject to read about. While it's touched on to a certain degree in the movie, they did a good job of keeping it family-friendly while not going quite so far as the book did - Herimoine gets the worst of it in the movie.

I, for one, can't wait to see the conclusion in July!

DVD Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Rated PG13 for brief language, brief sexuality, some scary images

Starring Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield, Verne Troyer, and Tom Waits with Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell

Old Doctor Parnassus runs a traveling sideshow with his daughter Valentina, confidant Percy and aspiring apprentice Anton. We see a drunk crash onto their stage, chasing Valentina through Parnassus' magical mirror into a strange place of imagination where at the end he has to choose between a bar and enlightment; of course he choose the bars, which blows up soon after he enters.

During their travel to their next stop, we learn that Doctor Parnassus, as well as Percy, are former monks, with Doctor Parnassus being over 1000 years old. He's been able to live that long as he once made a bet with the devil, Mr. Nick, in that he could win 12 souls over to craving stories and imagination rather than addiction and desire before Mr. Nick could - Parnassus won and was granted immortality. Although he still aged, he once met a woman during this time that he fell in love with, and made another deal Mr. Nick that he would be granted youthfulness in exchange that any child born would be given over to Mr. Nick at the age of 16 - Valentina will be turning 16 in just a few days, a day in which Parnassus is dreading. He makes a new deal with Mr. Nick - the first to win over 5 souls in 3 days wins, and if Parnassus wins, he gets to keep his daughter.

Suddenly, in the midst of a storm, they come across a man hanging from a bridge and rescue him. With no recollection of how he ended up under the bridge, in addition to amnesia, the man (whom Parnassus determines is a philanthropist named Tony) tags along with the troupe and offers up suggestions on how they might improve their sideshow and appeal to more people. While Parnassus is hesitant at first to accept the change, as his show has been the same for years, after witnessing the crowd they start to draw (with the help of Tony and his charm and sex appeal), he begins to think they might have a chance at winning the bet. But then jealously grows, as Anton sees Valentina bonding and becoming close to Tony, causing problems for them all.

Will Parnassus be able to win over 5 souls before Mr. Nick and keep his daughter or will jealously and lies get in the way?

This film is classic Terry Gilliam (who also directed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), as the imagination sequences are pretty trippy! And just like classic Gilliam, he has the worst luck with films, as it seems something ALWAYS goes wrong for him - in this case being that Heath Ledger died before they finished filming all his scenes.

Fortunately, the scenes that hadn't been shot were the ones where Ledger's character Tony goes through Parnassus' magic mirror and into various imaginations. Because the scenes took place in several different people's imaginations, they were able to use a different actor for each scene, giving Tony a different look in each imagination. It was helpful that prior to the transition into his first imagination scene, Ledger was actually channeling Johnny Depp, using quirky mannerism of his, so it only made sense to cast Depp as the first imagination Tony, making the transition from Ledger to Depp very natural - given the mask he's first wearing in the scene, unless you're listening carefully to the voice, you don't even notice it's Depp until a little ways into the scene!

If you liked Gilliam's previous works (most notably Fear and Loathing) you'll enjoy this fun fantasy film into the world of imagination. It's a shame Heath Ledger died, as he really did a great job in this film!

DVD Review: Tron

Rated PG for adult themes, tense moments

Starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, Dan Shor, David Warner

Video arcade owner Kevin Flynn is a former ENCOM software engineer who has created several video games that became popular after another ENCOM employee, Ed Dillinger, stole them from him. Knowing the files have his name on it, Flynn continues to hack into the ENCOM system and find them to prove he is the rightful creator of the games. After Flynn's most recent hack attempt, Dillinger and his Master Control Program (which has a mind of its own) decide to shut down access to the level group Flynn had access to, thus locking out fellow software engineer Alan Bradley who was working on a program called Tron which would serve as a watchdog program and keep even the Master Control Program in check.

Frustrated, Alan and Flynn come together, with the help of ENCOM employee Laura. They sneak Flynn into the building so he can distract the MCP and hack in long enough to grant them all level 6 access so Alan can get his Tron program up and running, which would help find the files proof that Flynn created the games and not Dillinger.

MCP does not like though and decides to physically trap Flynn into the the world of Bytes and Bits. Having to band together with other "user controlled" programs, including Tron, Flynn must fight for his survival and work with Tron to defeat the MCP from the inside in order to escape back to his world.

Released in 1982, I'm sure this sci-fi action adventure film was groundbreaking and in a lot of ways it reminded me of Bladerunner or The Running Man. Viewing it almost 20 years later though, it's extremely dated and the graphics and special effects are just laughable. We can only hope that the upcoming Tron: Legacy film has much better, updated graphics than the original.

I have to admit, while this is a Disney film and was marketed towards families, if I had watched this in the 80s as a little kid, I would have been extremely bored and confused as to what was going on. This is definitely not a movie meant for kids, as they most likely won't understand much of what's going on.

If you like classic sci-fi films from the 80s, this is one you might be interested in.

Alice in Wonderland

Rated PG for some scary moments, fantasy violence

Starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Michael Sheen and Stephen Fry

In this Alice story, Alice is now 19 years old and her father has recently passed. For the past 10 years, she has been having the same "nightmare" where she visits a strange place. She thinks she is going crazy, however her father always told her that "the best people tend to be a little bit!" Her mother accompanies her to a formal outdoor party, which Alice soon learns is to be her engagement party to a boy named Hamish, who's father was partners with her father and now is the sole owner of their trading firm. When Hamish pops the big question in front of all the guests, Alice panics and is distracted by a strange white rabbit she had noticed several times throughout the gathering. She excuses herself and chases after the rabbit and ends up at a rabbit hole and falls in.

Arriving in a strange room, she must figure out the puzzle of how to squeeze through a tiny locked door. Once on the other side, she is greeted by The White Rabbit, a dormouse, a dodo bird, and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Despite them acting like they know her, she don't recall ever meeting any of them. Confused as to whether The White Rabbit brought them the "right" Alice, they take her to Absolem the Caterpillar to let him decide. See, in this version of Wonderland (or Underland as they say it's called), the evil Red Queen has overthrown her younger sister, the White Queen and has been ruling with an iron fist, offing people's heads for reason or another. And well, Frabjous Day is coming soon and it is told that a hero named Alice will slay the Red Queen's wicked beast - the Jabberwocky, and free everyone from her rule.

"I'm not that Alice! And even if I were, I can't kill anything and I won't!" Alice cries. She also seems convinced that this just her having another one of her nightmares, as the people and place are exactly the same.

Believing that Alice is back, the Queen sends her right hand man - The Knave of Hearts - with the Bandersnatch, Jubjub Bird and solider-like playing cards to retrieve her and stop her. While they capture most of Alice's group, the Cheshire Cat shows up and helps her escape, taking her to the Mad Hatter and March Hare and rejoining her with the dormouse. The Mad Hatter is able to explain to her what went wrong, trying to get her to remember her previous time in Underland ("You were so young back then... you even kept calling this place Wonderland!"). But soon enough, it seems that everyone who comes in contact with Alice gets capture by the Red Queen's lackeys. Before being captured, the Mad Hatter gives her directions to get to the White Queen who can assist her in preparing to fight the Jabberwocky. But Alice would rather rescue the Mad Hatter and innocent beings the Red Queen has captured.

Is this Alice indeed the "right" Alice? Will she end up fighting the Jabberwocky? Will she stay in Underland?

Now some have complained that Tim Burton took the classic Alice stories and turned them upside down. Others have criticized it for being nothing like the original Disney version. What you must understand going into this one is that no, it is not a remake of the classic story nor an adaption. You could almost consider it to be "the next chapter" in the Alice story, as it takes place years after the events of the original stories (which we see in a flashback segment). The characters are all still there, however Wonderland is a much darker place than now than we may recall.

I personally loved it. The story was great, the characters were amusing and the scenery and details were definitely works of art! Oh and there's lessons for everyone that you shouldn't make choices for yourself based on what others think is best. Be responsible and make your choices for you.

Now this film is being offered in both 2D and 3D formats. We saw it in 3D IMAX and while I can't really say if the 3D enhanced it any, the IMAX was well worth it, as it really made you feel like you were in the movie, and this one of those movies where that effect really works great!

Little kids might be a little scared by the Jabberwocky and Bandersnatch, but other than that, this is a great film for a family outing!

DVD Review: Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian

Rated PG for brief sexual innuendo, slapstick violence

Starring Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria, Bill Hader

Taking place several years after the first film, Larry Daley is now a successful inventor of random household gadgets based off things he came up with to do his job in the first movie (ie: glow in the dark flashlight, unloseable keyring, etc) and hasn't visited the Museum of Natural History for some time. Upon revisiting, he learns that they are renovating the museum, replacing many of the exhibits with interactive holograms. Larry is told by Teddy Roosevelt that while he and a few select others will be staying at the museum, the rest will be moved to the Smithsonian Archives in Washington DC, and they will be going without the magical Golden Tablet Of Ahkmenrah which makes them all come alive at night.

Soon after the move to the Smithsonian, Larry receives a frantic phonecall from tiny Jedediah - apparently Dexter the monkey stole the tablet from the Museum of Natural History and everything is coming alive at the Smithsonian - including Pharaoh Ahkmenrah's not so nice older brother Kahmunrah who seeks the tablet to raise his army of the dead with the help of other classic bad guys such as Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon, and a young Al Capone. War is breaking out among the historical characters and Larry must get to Washington in time before Kahmunrah gets his hands on the tablet!

Since the one mostly takes place at the Smithsonian and it's multiple museums, we are introduced to a plethora of more historical characters than the first, one of the major ones being free-spirited Amelia Earhart.

This is a great adventure film for the whole family, as kids will learn about more history and adults will appreciate the humor and maybe even learn some history even they didn't know! If you enjoyed the first one, don't miss this one!

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Rated PG13 for dark elements, fantasy violence

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter

Taking place directly after the events of the previous film, Voldemort is back and his loyal followers, The Deatheaters, are wreaking havoc on not only the wizard world, but the muggle world as well. Draco Malfoy has also been recruited to carry out a task for the dark lord, one that Harry tries to figure out through most of the school year.

Back at Hogwarts, Harry and Ron are taking potions class with new returning Professor Slughorn, as Snape is now the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Harry receives a potions textbook that appears to have belonged once to the mysterious Half Blood Prince, in which the pages of the book are covered with annotations, which Harry uses to his benefit. Harry is also kept busy by Dumbledore, who, through the use of a pensive, shows Harry various memories of a young Voldemort, known back then as Tom Riddle, and teaches him about seven Horcuxes that Voldemort has created to safeguard his soul, that they need to find and destroy in order to stop the dark lord for good.

Love is also in the air at Hogwarts, as Harry begins to fall for his friend's sister, and Ron becomes smitten with a fellow student which makes Hermoine insanely jealous.

In comparison to previous Potter films, just like the books, the films are continuing to get darker and darker, with this being the darkest installment yet.

It does make for a good adaption from the book however - sure there were some parts that were left out or slightly changed for time, but overall, it left most fans satisfied and eagerly anticipating 2-part installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the last book in the series.

In spite of the dark and scary moments in this film, there also are some cute moments amongst our favorite wizard teens, as they continue to grow up and experience romantic love too, but in a way that is still innocent compared to other teenage films with teen romance.

While I wouldn't recommend this one for the younger kids, as some of the scenes might scare them a bit too much, the older kids, especially if they've read the book, will be just fine!

Stardust

Basically, if you grew up watching The Princess Bride, like I did, and/or love fairytale fantasies you will love this movie, as it's got the same wit and cleverness of it's Princess predecessor, but not nearly the amount of corny-ness...

Robert DeNiro steals all the scenes he's in - I won't say why, but it will have you rolling over in laughter.

Overall it was a very well done and is easily The Princess Bride of the new century when it comes to fairytales in this day and age.

Aside from DeNiro, it also stars Charlie Cox, Claire Danes and Michelle Pheiffer.

Based off a graphic novel, DON'T miss this one!

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I didnt read the books until after I saw the 4th movie. Having read the books and now seeing this one... I'm a bit disappointed.

They cut a ton of the extra plot lines out, changed around things that happen (one of them being a pretty big deal), and threw in things from the book for the sake of them being in there, but never really explained them. Watching it with several coworkers that hadn't read the books, they liked it for what it was, but admitted that they could tell there had been stuff cut from the story and wished certain things had been explained more...

Go see if ya've seen the others, but if ya read the books, you'll be a bit disappointed...

Eragon

f you've seen any similar movie in this genre, you've already seen eragon - from a plot line similar to that of the LOTR trilogy, to Beastmaster, to any other fantasy movie, it's like all of them into one. my friend that im sort of seeing and i made WoW puns/jokes the entire movie - it was awesome! we were laughing sooo hard!

jeremy irons gave a good performance though!

it's entertaining if ya like the genre, but it's nothing you havent seen already.

oh by the way, eragon is the name of the boy that is destined to become the first in a new way of dragonriders and this is the first in a 3 part trilogy.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Much much darker than the others, apparently if ya didnt read the book it would have seemed to jump around and not make a whole lot of sense at some parts (someone said they skipped about 100-200 pages within the first 10 minutes). Apparently it's just supposed to get even darker as well. Oh and this one was pg13 because someone dies in it and there's some life and death violence towards the end as well.

Can't wait to see the next movie! I'd say it's ok for older kids, but not so much the lil ones =)