Alvin And The Chipmunks : Chipwrecked (2011) 5/10

Starring : Jason Lee, Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney
Director : Mike Mitchell
Running Time : 87 mins

Alvin (Long) and his fellow Chipmunks, along with the Chipettes, accidentally go overboard whilst on a cruise ship and find themselves marooned on a desert island in the middle of nowhere.

I was just as surprised as anyone else that someone somewhere decided to make another Chipmunks movie. I was also surprised that Jason Lee – who clearly didn’t want to be in the second one as he tried to palm his role off on Zachary Levi – returned for the third instalment. The plot was pretty much non-existent, and the jokes have been recycled far too much. Fans of the original two might or might not enjoy this third one but, even for a kids film, the storyline is weak and really needed a little more thought.

You’ll like this if you liked : Yogi Bear

Steel Trap (2007) 6/10

Starring : Georgia Mackenzie, Mark Wilson, Pascal Langdale
Director : Luis Camara
Running Time : 89 mins

During a New Year’s Eve party, a number of the guests receive a mysterious text message inviting them to another party a few floors down, but when they arrive they find themselves being given a number of strange riddles that lead them around the seemingly deserted floor of the apartment block on a bizarre scavenger hunt. But there’s someone else watching them, and they have deadly intentions towards the guests…

I really thought that this cheap-looking Saw knock-off was going to be terrible, but it honestly wasn’t too bad, even though the poster is incredibly misleading. The acting wasn’t the best, but at least the majority of the characters had some sort of background personality, and the deaths are paced quite nicely and were not too overly gruesome which could have spoiled the effect of the movie.

You’ll like this if you liked : Saw

A Very Harold And Kumar 3D Christmas (2011) 7/10

Starring : Kal Penn, John Cho, Neil Patrick Harris
Director : Todd Strauss-Schulson
Running Time : 90mins

Harold Lee (Cho) and Kumar Patel (Penn) haven’t seen each other for six years and now lead very separate lives, but when Kumar turns up at Harold’s family Christmas and accidentally burns down his father-in-laws Christmas tree, the two find themselves on another crazy adventure, this time roaming New York City in search of a replacement tree.

Although not quite as good as the previous instalments of the Harold & Kumar saga, this is still a very silly and very enjoyable movie. The two heroes of the piece manage to continue down their separate roads, both high and low, yet manage to wind up on the same page as soon as they meet again. It’s nice to see that Harold managed to bag his lady, and that Kumar has never given up his dream. Plus, as usual, NPH is awesome.

You’ll like this if you liked : Pineapple Express

Mary And Max (2009) 8/10

Starring : Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana, Barry Humphries
Director : Adam Elliot
Running Time : 89 mins

It’s 1976, and lonely eight-year-old Mary Dinkle (Collette) lives in Mount Waverley, a small town in Melbourne Australia, where she dreams of a future where she is happily married and has lots of friends. One day she randomly chooses a name from a Manhattan phone book and writes a letter to Max Horovitz (Hoffman), a clinically obese forty-four-year-old New Yorker, in order to find out if American babies come from the same place Australian babies come from – the bottom of beer glasses. What follows is a long running correspondence that spans the decades to follow.

This is a cute movie that probably wouldn’t appeal to kids, but adults will love the sentiment of the piece. The innocence of both Mary and Max as they discuss their terribly lonely lives is both touching and funny, and the overall sadness of the movie is thankfully infused with enough humour to prevent this from being nothing but a tragic tale of loss.

You’ll like this if you liked : Corpse Bride

Arthur Christmas (2011) 7/10

Starring : James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Hugh Laurie
Director : Sarah Smith & Barry Cook
Running Time : 98 mins

When Santa (Broadbent) forgets to deliver a bicycle on Christmas Eve to a young girl, his eldest son Steve (Laurie) considers it to be an acceptable error considering how many children did get their presents, but Santa’s youngest son Arthur (McAvoy) takes it upon himself to deliver the gift personally by asking Grand-Santa (Nighy) to borrow his old sleigh.

This is a very cute movie that is perfect for Christmas day family viewing. The cast of well-known British actors do a perfect job of preventing this from being just another Christmas movie, and the animation is fresh and a joy to watch. The story itself is pretty basic, but it’s feel-good nature is something that both little kids and adults will enjoy.

You’ll like this if you liked : Wallace And Gromit In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit

The Santa Clause 3 : The Escape Clause (2006) 7/10

Starring : Tim Allen, Martin Short, Elizabeth Mitchell
Director : Michael Lembeck
Running Time : 88 mins

At the North Pole, Carol Calvin aka. Mrs Claus (Mitchell) is due to have a baby by her husband Scott aka Santa (Allen). The stress of her pregnancy, coupled with Christmas looming and his in-laws coming to visit, causes Scott no end of problems, and just when everything seems like it couldn’t get worse, Santa finds himself faced with potentially losing his Santa powers when Jack Frost (Short) fills in for him and tries to trick him into using the fabled escape clause that will mean he never became Santa in the first place.

It’s a bit annoying that Jack Frost is accused of upstaging Santa on his holiday – isn’t it Jesus’ holiday? Anyway, this movie is just a bit of fun, and actually giving Santa some proper adversity in this movie makes it a little more interesting than the previous instalment, although Jack Frost is a little more subtle than you’d expect.

You’ll like this if you liked : Jack Frost

Happy Feet Two (2011) 6/10

Starring : Elijah Wood, Alecia Moore, Hank Azaria
Director : George Miller
Running Time : 100 mins

Dancing penguin Mumble (Wood) is now fully grown and has a son of his own named Erik, but Erik doesn’t want to dance like the other penguins as he is embarrassed by how bad he is. Things get worse when Erik becomes fixated on The Mighty Sven (Azaria), an apparent penguin that can fly. As if things couldn’t get worse for Mumble, the penguins soon realise that their world is in peril from outside forces that are poised to destroy their home…

When this started I thought that this was going to be another rubbish kid’s movie where nothing happens, but eventually the plot kicked in and it was actually quite interesting, though not brilliant. Children will enjoy the various penguins and related characters, while grown ups will like the main plot with the so called Mighty Sven pretending to be a penguin. The only thing I really didn’t like was the bits with the krill, which felt like a rip-off of Ice Age.

You’ll like this if you liked : Surf’s Up

The Princess Diaries 2 : Royal Engagement (2004) 6/10

Starring : Anne Hathaway, Heather Matarazzo, John Rhys-Davies, Chris Pine, Callum Blue, Hector Elizondo, Julie Andrews
Director : Garry Marshall
Running Time : 114 mins

Princess Mia (Hathaway) of Genovia has just turned twenty-one and is now eligible to ascend the throne as queen, but the cunning Viscount Mabrey (Rhys-Davies) has found a loophole that means that if Mia doesn’t marry within thirty days, his nephew Nicholas Devereaux (Pine) can take the throne in Mia’s place. So Mia and her entourage set about trying to find a prince for the princess.

This is a pretty predictable sequel to the popular original movie, and if you manage to watch this and not predict who Mia gets together with then you are pretty feeble minded. I did prefer the original which had more of an innocence to it, whereas this basically embellishes on the fact that, even after five years, Mia is still a klutz. Fans of the original will like this, but it is pretty much a movie for teenage girls and few others will find anything to enjoy.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Prince And Me

Puss In Boots (2011) 7/10

Starring : Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thornton, Amy Sedaris
Director : Chris Miller
Running Time : 91 mins

Puss (Banderas) is a fugitive, on the run from the law and desperately trying to clear his name by capturing criminals Jack (Thornton) and Jill (Sedaris), who stole the magic beans he is accused of taking. Whilst attempting to retrieve them, he is intercepted by cat burglar Kitty Softpaws (Hayek), who is working with Puss’s one-time childhood friend and now enemy Humpty Dumpty (Galifianakis). Together, the three of them try to stop the thieves, but Puss soon realises that Humpty’s new-found friendship may not be entirely what it seems…

Everyone’s favourite boot wearing cat returns in his own original movie. Set prior to the Shrek series, there is no pandering to the audience by featuring guest stars from the popular series; instead Banderas is given his own story with brand new characters who are just as good as those in Shrek. Fans of Shrek will love this, and fans of Puss will be ecstatic that he has finally been given his own movie.

You’ll like this if you liked : Shrek 2

Our Family Wedding (2010) 7/10

Starring : America Ferrera, Forest Whitaker, Carlos Mencia, Lance Gross
Director : Rick Famuyima
Running Time : 104 mins

Lucia Ramirez (Ferrera) and Marcus Boyd (Gross) have never met each other’s parents, so when they come home from college and announce that they are engaged to be married, their respective fathers – Brad (Whitaker) and Miguel (Mencia) – are less than happy, especially when they recognise each other from an incident earlier in the day, and they both do their best to put an end to their relationship.

This comedy is filled with racially-motivated humour, and most of the anger of the two fathers seems to come from their black and Hispanic backgrounds which does at times get in the way of the rest of the comedy. But, once you get past this, there are multiple levels of humour throughout the film and, even though a lot of the jokes are initially based on race, the characters aren’t necessarily racial stereotypes. This may not be the best, but it’s worth giving a go.

You’ll like this if you liked : Guess Who

The Thing (2011) 7/10

Starring : Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen
Director : Matthijs van W Campbell Jr
Running Time : 99 mins

At a remote Antarctic research facility, the discovery of a strange – possibly alien – space craft leads to some strange occurrences as people start to suspect that their colleagues may not be who they appear to be and violent deaths begin to happen at the hands of a shape-changing and malevolent force.

Everyone will instantly want to compare this to John Carpenter’s 1982 classic, but this just sets the movie up to fail. Making a remake of a remake (?) is probably not the wisest thing in the world to do; those involved here have managed to make a reasonable movie, though it is basically a facsimile of Carpenter’s work with a female lead thrown in. Worth checking out – I myself was worried that CGI effects might butcher this but the effects were okay.

You’ll like this if you liked : Whiteout

Arthur And The Revenge Of Maltazard (2009) 6/10

Starring : Freddie Highmore, Selena Gomez, Mia Farrow, Lou Reed
Director : Luc Beeson
Running Time : 94 mins

Arthur (Highmore) is a small boy with the ability to harmonize with trees, minerals and animals, but most importantly he can communicate with the Minimoys, a small tribe of creatures that live secretly in our world, so when he receives a message of distress on a grain of rice from Princess Selenia (Gomez), he shrinks down and re-enters their world but finds out too late that the message was a trap laid by the evil Maltazard (Reed).

Although the animation is a little bit better than the first movie, the story takes a lot longer to get going. Once it does though, this isn’t too bad a movie, but small children might have trouble coping with the first forty minutes before Arthur travels back into the world of the Minimoys.

You’ll like this if you liked : Ferngully : The Last Rainforest

The Big Year (2011) 7/10

Starring : Owen Wilson, Jack Black, Steve Martin
Director : David Frankel
Running Time :101 mins

Kenny Bostick (Wilson) is the current record holder for Birder of the Year with a total of 732 birds sighted within a year, but two wannabe bird watchers, Brad Harris (Black) and Stu Preissler (Martin), want nothing more than to beat that record. Unfortunately Bostick is hot on their tale and will stop at nothing to ensure he continues to hold his prestigious title.

You wouldn’t think that a movie about three bird watchers would actually be interesting, but this manages to stay engrossing from beginning to end. Black and Martin play the sympathetic characters well, while Wilson portrays the villain in a very underplayed way that at times makes us sympathise with him too, but once we get to the end we’ve realised he doesn’t deserve our sympathy. Even if you aren’t interested in bird watching, this is still a good tale of team work and how family should always come first.

You’ll like this if you liked : Rat Race

Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging (2008) 7/10

Starring : Georgia Groome, Aaron Johnson, Karen Taylor, Alan Davies
Director : Gurinder Chadha
Running Time : 101 mins

14 year old Georgia Nicolson (Groome) hates her life, until she meets new boy at school Robbie (Taylor-Johnson) and immediately falls for him. In order to try to get close to him, Georgia pretends that her pet cat Angus has gone missing so that Robbie will help her look for him, but just when things start to look like their improving for her, her dad Bob (Davies) announces that they’re all moving to New Zealand for his job.

This is a cute movie with some nice observational dialogue and some great performances from the young actors involved. The plot is a little confusing, as it comes from two different novels and tries to blend them together, but it works out well and the flow is pretty good one it gets going. A must for teenagers, and some grown-ups might enjoy it too.

You’ll like this if you liked : Mean Girls

Hugo (2011) 6/10

Starring : Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen
Director : Martin Scorsese
Running Time : 128 mins

Hugo Cabret (Butterfield) is an orphan who lives in the walls of a 1930s Parisian train station where he spends his time fixing the station clocks. When he discovers that the key to the automaton left to him by his father is missing its key, he ventures beyond the walls in search of it, meeting with a girl named Isabelle (Moretz), the god-daughter of local shopkeeper George Melies (Kingsley) while trying to avoid the attentions of the local station inspector (Cohen).

For such a highly praised movie, personally I wouldn’t say more than this was okay. The performances were fine for a kid’s movie, and the plot was cute, but the runtime was ridiculously long considering how basic the storyline is and I’d imagine most kids would tire of this pretty quickly. I’d call this a children’s movie that is aimed at adult sensibilities around childhood more than what modern children would actually enjoy.

You’ll like this if you liked : The Adventures Of Tintin

The American (2010) 6/10

Starring : George Clooney, Violante Pacido, Thekla Reuten
Director : Anton Corbijn
Running Time : 100 mins

When he is forced to kill his girlfriend in Sweden, assassin and master gun craftsman Jack (Clooney) vows that his next assignment will be his last before he retires for good, He travels to Italy where he starts a relationships with prostitute Clara (Pacido) and begins work constructing a gun intended for assassination by Belgian client Mathilde (Reuten), but the information he holds about his clients and his bosses might be more than his life’s worth.

Clooney isn’t a particularly sympathetic character in this slow paced action thriller, but eventually he redeems himself. The fact that he kills his own girlfriend basically to cover his own tracks isn’t the best character trait, but the fact that this preys on his mind for the remainder of the film is something, I suppose. Fans of nudity will love Violante Pacido as the prostitute gone good, but don’t expect too much excitement in the action department.

You’ll like this if you liked : Edge Of Darkness

50/50 (2011) 8/10

Starring : Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anjelica Huston
Director : Jonathan Levin
Running Time : 101 mins

When 27-year-old Adam Lerner (Gordon-Levitt) is diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer, he discovers who is real friends are. His girlfriend Rachael (Howard) starts to feel uncomfortable with the situation following her initially promising reaction, and his best friend Kyle Hirons (Rogen) does his best to boost his spirits. But as Adam sees other cancer patients die around him, his starts to succumb to his own mortality…

Although the subject of the movie is a serious one, those involved have managed to maintain a light hearted approach to this movie and keep things upbeat while not ignoring the serious side of the subject matter. Gordon-Levitt is exceptional in the lead, managing to bring both comedy and drama to what for many could prove to be a difficult role to pull off.

You’ll like this if you liked : It’s Kind Of A Funny Story