I have some catching up to do so the next reviews might seem rushed, sorry bout that … I’m just gonna tidy up what I’ve already written and post.

Score 3 for the “movies I almost saw on my birthday this year but didn’t, thank god!” field lol. And this is the one that I really thought couldn’t fail for me. A movie like this should have my eyes unable to look away at all times, and frankly, this one didn’t achieve that at all. It rarely rises above its basic concept – War of the Worlds meets Blair Witch (or “there’s a visual effect loose in Manhattan and all I have is this lousy handycam!”). The only moderate surprise was Lizzy Caplan (Janis Ian from Mean Girls), who at first I thought was Zooey Deschanel’s sister. I was expecting a movie where if we saw the monster at all it would only be at the end; I think (ed.: hmm, I don’t know what I think, I left that sentence unfinished when I left off writing a week ago and I don’t know how it was gonna end LOL).

Its technical qualities lift it above most of what’s been released so far this year, though of course that isn’t saying much. The “wiping the tape” subplot is kind of as cute as it is hokey and leads to an ending that can’t fail to tug at the heartstrings. The whole message of the movie is clearly appreciate what you’ve got because it could all be gone tomorrow but I can’t help but think it could’ve been delivered better – dare I say it even, without the whole video gimmick that makes it remotely unique. I’d be amazed and depressed by the audience member who relates or so much as gives a damn about the characters here; and even if you were to start out with the blindest faith in them, the writer breaks the fourth wall horribly with misplaced humour like the Superman/Garfield dialogue, it’s just beyond hideously done. Even the second port of call, the visuals, isn’t really a department you can get too excited in – the monster itself is quite embarassingly reminiscent of the devil thing that appeared in the Season One finale of Torchwood. It’s probably cool to watch with a frenzied audience … but you know my feelings on that way of judging a movie’s true quality.

After waiting years to finally get around to seeing this, I was pretty damn excited when I found a copy of it lying around that I’d previously thought unplayable. Sadly, the excitement didn’t last long. I was a huge fan of the 1937 movie when I saw it as a sixteen year old, it was probably the first “old” movie (outside of the ones all kids are exposed to anyway like Wizard of Oz and Snow White etc) I’d seen and among the first to really make me cry my eyes out (“This is Mrs Norman Maine!” lol I can actually barely remember the movie but that line will always be with me). One would think such an influential introduction to the original would put me off the remakes, but how can you refuse the 50s version with Judy Garland and James Mason and then this, with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson?

Well, the problem with this version of the story is, it’s pretty much exactly as I imagined it would be; now that I’ve seen it, I wonder why I was ever so excited by the idea. It’s really more a showcase for Barbra Streisand’s talent and voice built shakily around the bones of the original. It hits all the marks, but somehow the story suddenly feels horribly loose, as though they’re just plodding through the plot points by the number to get to the next big song.

It has its moments, and it’s a worthy production if only for giving the world “Evergreen” – that scene here is by far the most affecting too … really, even in the music department outside of that song, this one disappoints. Compared to the emotion I wanted from it, I really couldn’t feel more let down. I’ve been amazed thinking lately why there hasn’t been another remake of the story since this one; now, having seen it, I don’t know whether to simply realise this is why that is or to wonder even more – afterall, I honestly think even a new remake with a Lindsay or Britney or Ashlee-a-like would have the potential to work better than this overall.

There’s a moment towards the end of this movie that came to me as a huge relief – someone tells Katherine Heigl, after she puts things to rights in an undeniably stirring scene of “gumption” as in The Holiday – “You could’ve told him face to face … instead you unleashed 20 years of repressed feelings in one night – it was amazing to watch, but if it was the right thing to do, you’d feel better right now …”

Which kind of makes me wonder why the screenwriter took the story to that place to begin with. The presence of James Marsden put me in mind of Enchanted here (I know, I really need to get over it) and to me it’s similar in the way that it accepts a lot of behaviours as hilariously okay which to me are generally unacceptable – I never understand love stories that focus so much on hateful thinking. Like, here is Heigl, the only sane person in the movie, and basically she endures an hour and a half of the world telling her she’s crazy and by the end, she throws away all those dresses and succumbs to being just like everyone else. It’s sick.

I won’t deny it won me over at a couple of junctures – the aforementioned slideshow scene, the cute moment where she’s having her picture taken with some Japanese girls and stands up, and the “Bennie and the Jets” scene. But overall, does this kind of thing really need to be mounted on a giant screen in 2.35:1?

I’m sorry about my recent reviews, I feel like a total grump or something. I don’t know why I always forget how awful the beginning of the year always is and I’ve also a lot of other things going on as well as a basic routine slump of chemical failing somewhere in my brain I think. That or it’s just an expected side effect of forcing oneself to watch and write about everything I can get my hands on LOL.

I feel luckier than most of those who’ve been disappointed by this one by the fact that my interest in it lay pretty much solely in AnnaSophia Robb’s appearance in it, and I found out how small her role was when I saw the trailer months ago. It’s smaller still than that, in fact … but at least I was prepared. The worrying thing to me about her presence here was how young she looked – like, just how long ago was this thing shot?! ‘cos right now, even around the time Bridge to Terabithia shot, I’m sure she could almost quite easily have played the older, more prominent, Millie. (this article suggests they shot August 2006 … I guess AS is just good at dressing older more recently, lol).

As to the movie – well, it’s as slick as the trailer looked, and I think the key lies in realising the rather dreary thing the movie is saying, and it’s something we’ve all wondered from time to time if we’ve ever thought about having a superpower and which one we’d choose etc; would we really use it to help people like Superman etc? Or would we just keep it to ourselves and peep on people in the shower (ahem)? But while this would seem to be a unique and pertinent, especially at this point in time, subject for a movie, it turns out to be pretty unexciting in the end.

I think the only thing that could maybe have made it better is if they cut out the time lag and cast a younger guy as the hero, keeping AnnaSophia in the Millie part (really, this is not just the AnnaSophia fan in me saying this lol). You can imagine younger teenagers acting this way, even as far as “acting older” like Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can. When it’s Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson … it’s just kinda pathetic. Also nobody should ever let Jamie Bell use his regular voice in a movie, ever again. I figured it might’ve worked here in the short clips I’d seen, being as it almost makes sense if he’s never stayed in one place most his life … but basically, the movie’s just not good enough for me to be that considerate over it.

The scene where Christensen finally reveals to Bilson his little quirk is quite the ultimate case in point as to why this movie is so far from realising its potential. He dances around the issue in a stupidly comic way, Samuel Jackson right outside the front door seconds away from killing them both; and when he finally shows her, her acting ability is revealed in all its hopeless glory as she “reacts” to seeing a human being defy the laws of time and space before her very eyes.

Having only seen 3 movies so far from this year (including this), I really thought this would be the one that made it feel like the year had begun. As it is, though the other two (Rambo and Day of the Dead) were no masterpieces either, I’d certainly watch them again much sooner than this one, which told me all I needed to know in one go and left me simply wanting to shout, “Next?”

On the plus side the visuals are good (Egypt in particular – Bucket List losers take note lol) as are the exotic locations. I guess they make up for the criminal underuse of AnnaSophia. But we’re still left with a gaping hole of a movie. That it ends an hour too soon (not that I’d want another hour; but seriously, no ending in movies has ever made me think “That’s it?!” so loudly) is just insult to injury … and that Christensen doesn’t even learn anything by the movie’s close is just … grr, can you just tell that I’d rant about this for days if I had the time? I guess there’ll be a sequel … I mean god, if White Noise got one … I won’t even be rushing to download that … unless it’s AnnaSophia.

Lawd. I started watching this the other night but I was too tired in the end. I came to it today truly wanting to like it. I love the concept – I love the normality of the opening with Dorothy at the family get-together, it’s just so beautifully down-to-earth and the music is great there too (“Don’t know what I’m made of / Why am I afraid of … feeling?”)

But then Dorothy goes to Oz. Now, ever since Meet the Robinsons, I’m pretty careful about first impressions, and the “look” of Oz here certainly had the same effect as the future did there. The make-up (by Stan Winston no less) is hideous, the costumes wild but pretty lazy in all (like someone just went into a thrift store or a school’s theatre wardrobe and grabbed anything wild-looking)

My head just got buried more and more in my hands as the music got more indigestible and the Sesame Street quality just devoured the thing entirely. I don’t want to compare it to the 1939 movie – pretty much anything looks bad by comparison – but even coming to it with the highest desire to work with it and find the goodness with in it, I struggled painfully. I nearly died laughing when the lion lets rip with, “I’m a lion!” ROFL … I just kept feeling like Homer Simpson in the “Homer’s Phobia” episode of The Simpsons in the steelworks … “oh my god, what’s happening now?!” lol. Then it goes absurdly dark at the end! Then they all get naked? lol. It’s just a maddening mess.

I’m inclined to say it could be the worst film I’ve ever seen – but there are a lot of plus points that make me understand where its fans are coming from. The sets in themselves are often stunning. Some of the music is catchy, even in the case of “Can I Go On?” slightly moving. The rainbow in the sprinklers at the end is simply inspired, and Richard Pryor completely steals the movie when he finally appears. I’m interested in a review I read on the IMDb that says how the Broadway show was pretty spectacularly different. Whatever … it’s certainly a curio, worth watching if you’re a fan of cinema, musicals, or just plain Oz … but I personally found it pretty damn excruciating, in a geniuinely “Make it stop!” kind of way. I think the credits say it all – written by Joel Schumacher, produced by Rob Cohen, and directed by Sidney Lumet. Too many cooks spoil the broth indeed … especially when they’re that differently minded.

Again, we should really count ourselves lucky these sequels were made in the Seventies ‘cos the Eighties would’ve left us with genuine horrors. And again … why no girls? How can writer Bill Lancaster have stayed true to the spirit of the original film two times over yet missed completely one of its most unique and memorable components? I’m sure I’m not just being my cutie-obsessed self on this, lol – I really think they would’ve been 10 times the sequels they are with another Amanda Whurlitzer type in the mix to keep the boys in check. Anyway, this one’s even more forgettable than the first sequel, more an oddity being as it stars Tony Curtis than anything else.

I was really impressed by Rocky Balboa ... and I guess it was a little dumb of me to expect Sylvester Stallone to do the same here as he did there; part because, in a sense, I guess he has done the same as he did there, only, not in the way I expected. Rather than instill the franchise with something more than the basic high concept formulaic nonsense as he did with “Balboa”, he’s really made here the definitive Rambo movie, just as he made the definitive Rocky movie in “Balboa”. I think the best review of this I’ve read recently said something along the lines of, it would probably feel more at home and play better on a crappy VCR, pan-and-scan and tracking problems included lol. He’s been that faithful to the general feel of the series.

Which is a shame – I figured especially with the titling of the installment, he was going for the same thing as Rocky Balboa ... reclaiming the franchise and showing ‘em how it’s done after being disappointed for years with how the sequels to his greatest successes were being treated. The last half hour of violence here goes some way towards making it worth watching … but it’s really mostly a letdown all the way. He had a gift here in that the title hadn’t even yet been used in the series (“First Blood” having been the title of part one) ... boy does he squander it.

I figured this would all hinge on how well I took the moment of the bee talking to the human. So I was surprised by how well I took that scene. Though the minor giggles continue to come throughout, it gets very stupid, very annoying, very fast – the kind of movie where I could see the stars dropping off the rating with almost precision timing. The celebrity name checks are particularly half-assed (“I can’t fly a plane!” “Isn’t John Travolta a pilot? How hard can it be?!” ugh, and I thought Scary Movie 4 was simple) I was a little weirded out by the message too, in a similar way I overthunk The Incredibles – like, this movie seems to be just saying “get in your place and do what you’re supposed to do.” I’m overly aware of both sides of everything, hence the domain I live at, so it pains me that I can see there’s a point in this message somewhere … but, ugh, really, leave it alone, especially in a kids’ movie. They really deserve better, and I’m even more glad now that this wasn’t nominated for an Oscar than I was before I saw it.