Aquophis

Focus Features and Laika made a stop-motion fairy tale in 2009 called Coraline, and it was the greatest movie ever made in history. Their second stop-motion, ParaNorman, a comedy adventure, is almost as great. Basically, it's really funny and has an amazing climax, but it's also got a clumsier pace and it's rather heavy with its themes on bullying. Then again, maybe some things need to be delivered heavily. Because people as a whole have a rather remarkable proficiency for not seeing below the surface. But really, what makes this such an excellent movie for children is the questions that parents will be discussing with their kids after viewing. While the lack of subtlety may be a little off-putting to older viewers, the moral issues it tackles are (in my opinion) extremely important for our generation's kids to be thinking about. One poignant thing I overheard after the credits were rolling was the little kids in the theatre talking about the movie and saying that their favorite character was the witch. I think that's what I admire most about the movie - it's darkly comic and fun to watch, but it's also sincere and affecting. Also, it was good of them to include a gay character in a children's film.

One of the few novel adaptations that actually comes close to approaching the quality of its source material. The only blunder was not expanding much on Rue's character the way they did in the book. Otherwise, this is a useful companion to the book that even expands on the book's social commentary (mostly by being more unsubtle, but that's beside the point). You don't need to read the book to understand it, either - my dad saw it and liked it. Anyway, I loved the shaky camera and the way they would take out all the sound in the fighting scenes and replace it with white noise. It made it more horrifying. After all, this is NOT an epic popcorn roller-coaster ride, this is a disturbing, upsetting vision of the direction in which our shallow, sheltered, desensitized, gossipy, flamboyant, privileged first-world western society could very well head. We ARE the Capitol audience, and something very much like the Hunger Games could insinuate in the near future. The movie did an excellent job illustrating this (loved Cato's monologue - that actually should have been in the book). Along with that, the cast was superb. Jennifer Lawrence, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Isabelle Fuhrman and Liam Hemsworth are all terrific actors. And the soundtrack (especially the credits song) was great.

Don't listen to the critics! This movie, although adopting a premise that has been done to death (especially by Disney), is still subversive as much as it is conventional. It's a character-driven story - like every other Pixar movie - that focuses more on the chemistry between the protagonist and her mother than on the adventure. It does so deftly, with theme and emotion and depth all around, as much depth as How To Train Your Dragon (to which it is often compared. Personally I think they're equally great.) What I loved the most was the care they took in portraying Merida realistically - not as a badass action heroine, but as a frightened, desperate child who only wanted her mother back. She doesn't end up with a husband by the end of the movie, but I think it's better that way. We really needed a movie, actually, that reminds us that things like love and occupation don't need to be found when you're so young. Because in the end, this movie is really about a girl who just wants to be the child that she is, while she still can, rather than grow up too fast. And I find that incredibly poignant.

The critics are right. It is disjointed and wildly incoherent. But it is based on the most influential work of science fiction E-V-E-R. Seriously, "Avatar" and "Star Wars" would NOT exist without the book "The Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs.That being said, perhaps you need to be of a certain age to fully appreciate this film. I am not of that age. However, I really did like the stylistic melding of Renaissance-fair-sword-and-sorcery, and laser-beams-science-fiction.

They didn't make the Percy movie the way they should have, but it still tells a good, entertaining enough story all its own. Definitely not Chris Columbus's best. If you want to see his triumphs, look for the first two Harry Potter films.

Loved the music and the traditional animation, although the narration sounded passive and bored at times. It also had a great environmental message. Only cynical anti-environmentalists will hate this film.

My only complaint? It was far too short. A universe like this can't be contained in an hour and 12 minutes. I would have liked to have seen more expansion on certain characters who, as a direct result of the limited length, got only a few lines in before dying.

Better than the original. The movie decides to utilize even more effectively what made its predecessor so entertaining - exaggerated, caricatured, amusingly overblown characters that don't take themselves seriously in the slightest.

I was rather taken aback when I did some background reading subsequently after watching and discovered that the actual events were, in fact, a great deal different from what I saw in the movie. Aside from that, it's a happy, charming movie of the feel-good variety, although I was annoyed how the young boy, Slater, was portrayed as "special" and having some sort of profound connection with the dolphin that no one else had.

Very wonderful movie that is sure to get children to care about animals and the environment. We need to militantly raise a generation of eco-warriors to save our planet and put the lives and welfare of animals before ourselves.

I'm guessing this is one of those "loved by the public, hated by the critics"-type films. I, for one, found it delightful. What else would you expect when you have a wonderfully quirky author adapted by a wonderfully quirky director?

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This is a movie that everybody should watch. The more "loony", "tree-hugging", "bleeding-heart" "hippies" in the world, the better. The only kind of person who could dislike this movie is the insufferable cynic.

For all its cutting-edge special effects and compelling thrills, the third Jurassic Park film installment has the feel of a B-movie, minus the Michael Bay-esque explosions and scantily clad women. The movie makes the mistake that so many other dinosaur movies make - it fails to tell a human story as well as an adventure story, and the result can easily be called the world's longest chase scene. It was merely a series of climaxes with brief and generally meaningless pauses that don't advance or contribute anything, not to mention little to no character development. While I was glad to see the pterodactyls in action, the T. rex gets hardly any screentime at all before being abruptly killed off by some bigger, badder dinosaur called Spinosaurus. I kid you not - they basically took the beloved mascot of the franchise, the one who commanded such a powerful, memorable and screen-stealing presence, and they kicked him into the dust and spat in his face. I don't care if there's another, equally-scary dinosaur to take his place - Tyrannosaurus rex was everybody's favorite dinosaur in the films, and it's oddly hearbreaking to see him cast aside for something "better" that somehow unconvincingly evaded the humans all throughout the previous film. But the worst part was the raptors. They were even smarter than the humans, and they basically controlled the whole plot. Overall, the sequel to the two greatest dinosaur movies of all time (and two of the best movies of all time) ended up as something less than extraordinary.

Arguably ties with Sorcerer's Stone for the title of The Very Best Harry Potter Movie Ever Made In The Whole Wide World. The film was both breathtakingly epic and breathtakingly emotional, to the nth degree. Although not done by John Williams, the film score is excellent and speaks so much without words. Snape's flashbacks were brilliantly done, and this time, every departure from the book only makes the impact greater. And at the very end, the film wraps back around in mood to the warm, enchanting feel of the first film by using John Williams's original movie score, invoking both nostalgia and satisfaction. Everyone is sad to see Harry Potter go and the director knows it, and he pulls out all the stops to tease the viewers' tear ducts. A wonderful conclusion to a wonderful series.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Unfortunately, this one takes departures from the book that didn't really sit well with me. It was, namely, the decision to take out the two most emotionally rousing scenes in the book - the battle at Hogwarts, and the white tomb, and replace the empty screentime with a shot of the Burrow burning down that never happened in the book. But despite this, the film is arguably the funniest out of them all. It's probably the worst of the lot, but it's still great.

Often described as the worst of these films, I found it to be one of the better ones. Everything important in the 800+ page novel is captured near-flawlessly in this adaptation. I was perplexed by the somewhat surreal series of vision throes that Harry has during the film's climax, but after re-reading the book it makes sense to me now. (It's Harry's mental combat with Voldemort, who is trying to take over his thoughts.) But Evanna Lynch's portrayal of Luna Lovegood was the real highlight of the movie. She was perfect for the role.

Not as good as the first two, I'm afraid - I wasn't too fond of the inconsistent art direction. The three leads were inexplicably strutting around Hogwarts in their street clothes rather than their usual school robes. While it lacks much of the warmth and whimsical enchantment of the first two films, and the transition into "dark and gritty" may come across as abrupt to some, the more subdued mood of the movie fits in well with its events - a murderer IS on the loose, after all. Overall, it's a great movie and a satisfying adaptation, but the other ones are better.

Almost as much a triumph as the first adaptation, Chamber of Secrets suffers slightly from some awkwardly-placed dialogue. But this doesn't significantly detract from the viewing experience, and its climax is among the best seen in any Harry Potter film.

It does an impeccable job of conveying all the emotional warmth and utter enchantment that the book had, and John Williams's fantastic soundtrack makes it all the better. This is a movie that will truly capture your sense of wonder.

Okay, so maybe it has a lot of fantasy cliches, but the main character is so likable you can forget all that. In a time where the "nerd" demographic is increasing so exponentially, a character like this will be very easy for many viewers to relate to.

These films are my guilty pleasure. Sure, they're ridiculous, overblown and immature, but that's where their appeal lies. Still, I think they should stop making these films now. The first film was already the best movie that could be made with these characters, so the series can only get worse. Honestly, the movie was only made to appeal to the younger folks, and it fulfills that purpose just fine.

The adventure itself is epic, but it's disrupted by tangents of unneeded comic relief. The result is a bit of a paradox - younger kids will be attracted by the goofiness, only to be sent howling out of the theater by scenes like the brutal machine gun murder in the beginning of the film. I also felt that Snowey the dog was too anthropomorphized.

Gritty war movies and sappy horse movies aren't really my taste, but somehow when the two come together the result is greater than the sum of its parts.

I don't think I can even remember the last time I've ever been subject to such a stagnant, passive viewing experience. Such a slow, sluggish plot that I found myself silently urging along. The film felt like all twinkling lights and tenderness, almost never jumping out at me. Watching it could be compared to trying to swim through a lake of honey - there's warmth and sweetness, sure, but it's very slow going. The main boy actor hardly shows any emotion on his face - to me, he looked either creepily indifferent or morose and sullen.