Saturday, February 11, 2006

Movies opening this week

Curious George (Voices of Will Ferrell, Dick Van Dyke, David Cross, Drew Barrymore, dir. Matthew O'Callaghan)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
This has been getting mostly good reviews, and I feel sort of bad giving it a mildly negative one, but I can't imagine anyone over the age of four possibly enjoying this movie. Egregious product placement aside, it is sort of refreshing to see an animated movie that isn't straining itself to appear hip by loading down with pop culture references and ill-suited celebrity voices (the celebrities in this film all do perfectly appropriate and satisfactory work). It's just too bad that they replace those elements with a boring, meandering plot and a serious lack of energy. The kid sitting in front of me was clearly bored and introduced me to a new low in theatergoer annoyance: Perhaps emulating his parents, he was playing with a toy cell phone that lit up and made stupid ringtone noises just like a real one. Wide release

Final Destination 3 (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, Kris Lemche, dir. James Wong)
My review in Las Vegas Weekly
I actually watched both previous Final Destination films in the last couple of weeks to prepare for this review, and found them to be a lot of fun. And if all you care about is gore and some mordant humor and people dying in ridiculous ways, then you'll probably really like this movie. My friend who went to the screening with me (and is a big FD fan) certainly did. I even found parts of it entertaining, but they really have been making the same movie over and over again, and I think that if they make a Final Destination 4, they're going to need to think of something seriously innovative to justify yet another installment. Wide release

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