My Review: Parental Guidance (5/10)

¨You gotta shape up Artie! You know what grandparenting is? A second chance! ¨

To be honest I knew I wasn’t going to like this movie before going to see it and didn’t expect much from it. I decided to go so I could spend some time with my family, and I knew it was a film my parents and younger brother would enjoy (and they did). This is a very family friendly film with several cheesy moments. This is also entirely predictable and the plot is one you could see over and over again in any sitcom on TV if you wanted to. The film was directed by Andy Fickman (Game Plan and Race to Witch Mountain) and if you’ve seen any of his previous movies then you kind of know what to expect. You either enjoy these types of movies or you don’t since the style and jokes are pretty similar. The film had some sweet and intentionally emotional moments, but it really failed to connect with me. Billy Crystal hasn’t made a lot of movies in the past decade and I know he is really funny, but this just wasn’t the right film for him. There is not much I can say really about the rest of the cast since they didn’t have much to work with considering they all played clichéd characters. Parental Guidance is a film that some might enjoy, but the truth of the matter is that you will forget all about it a few hours after you leave the cinema. It won’t stick with you and you won’t get anything out of it either, which is pretty sad considering the film tries to be a sort of social commentary as how differently we raise our kids in today’s society.

Artie (Billy Crystal) has been working as a baseball commentator for a minor league baseball team for several decades and is happily married to Diane (Bette Midler). His life dream has always been to be the announcer of the San Francisco Giants, but when he’s fired from the little leagues for being old school he is brought down to reality. They receive a call from their daughter Alice (Marisa Tomei) who wants them to babysit her three kids while she and her husband Phil (Tom Everett Scott) go on a work vacation trip. Artie and Diane don’t really see their grandkids much so they accept the challenge. The kids aren’t really thrilled about having their grandparents over since they have been raised in a very different way, and the truth of the matter is that Alice is really worried about leaving them with her parents (apparently she feels that they didn’t do a good job raising her) as well. Harper (Bailee Madison) is the oldest, a violin perfectionist, then there is Turner (Joshua Rush) who is taking voice lessons, and finally there is Barker (Kyle Harrison), the youngest who has an imaginary kangaroo friend named Karl. Artie and Diane’s methods of parenting don’t seem to connect with the way the kids have been raised by their type-A parents and things are about to get really interesting.

This family friendly film is really light hearted and doesn’t seem to take sides here as to which is the correct form to raise kids, because as Billy Crystal’s character says ¨being a parent doesn’t come with instructions.¨ The film makes fun of both extremes of parenting. There are some emotional moments, especially near the end of the film where Alice and Artie have a conversation about the way he raised her and why she has become so estranged towards them. No answer is really provided. The grandparents made several mistakes but in the end they did help out the kids a lot, but it seems that there was some sort of issue between Artie and Alice that never really got resolved. There are several funny moments involving the kids, but I really didn’t find it very amusing. I think Bailee Madison is one of the cutest child actresses and the rest of the kids were also all very cute. This is a light film that some kids and adults will enjoy, but like I said before it’s nothing groundbreaking at all and you will forget all about it as soon as it’s over.

  

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My Review: Don`t Be Afraid of the Dark (4/10)

¨We want you! ¨

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is the latest scary movie to once again fall short in what I consider a dying genre. Horror movies nowadays suffer from very poor scripts, the stories are really predictable because we`ve seen so many horror films, and they all rely heavily on special effects. Very few horror films actually manage to scare audiences, and most simply try to shock. At least this film isn`t gory, but there aren`t any scares either. The main problem I had with this movie were the villains: small Gremlin looking fairies. They just weren’t scary at all; they never seemed to present a threat. They are more funny looking than anything else. What really disappointed me the most about this movie however was the script because I was expecting more from Guillermo del Toro (Laberinto del Fauno and Hellboy). The story was actually weak and by the time the mystery about what was in the house disappeared so did my expectations. The mystery only lasts about 20 minutes and then we have to sit through 70 minutes of pointless storytelling. This was Troy Nixey`s directorial debut and in my opinion he failed big time. This film was actually based on a 1973 made for television movie of the same title which was directed by John Newland. It`s really hard nowadays to find an interesting horror flick that won’t disappoint. We don’t need to be warned about fearing the dark as long as these movies keep on failing to scare its audiences.

The movie opens with a strange murder that takes place in the large basement of a house. A famous painter named Blackwood (Garry McDonald) calls his housemaid (Edwina Ritchard) to come down to the basement where he patiently waits for her and kills her. He asks her to forgive him, but he has to do it in order to get his missing boy back. Some creatures that live under a fireplace seem to demand teeth in exchange for the boy`s life so Blackwood takes her teeth and offers them to the creatures, but instead of getting the boy back he is pulled down the fireplace and disappears. Many decades later a couple, Alex (Guy Pearce) and Kim (Katie Holmes), decides to buy the old house and restore it. While working on the house Alex`s ex wife sends his estranged daughter, Sally (Bailee Madison), to live with them. Sally isn’t happy about ¨being sold¨ by her mother and she isn`t very fond about Kim either. Sally is a very lonely and depressed girl, but she begins hearing voices in the house. One day while she is walking around the backyard she discovers a basement and Alex decides to open the sealed up room. Once they unlock the basement, some small creatures begin to haunt Sally in the darkness. Of course no one believes Sally since she has been so affected by trying to adapt to her new home. Since no one is willing to help her, she decides she will have to face her fear alone.

The story actually seemed kind of interesting at first, but as I said, once the mystery was over in the opening minutes of the film so was my interest. The story just goes downhill from there on with very little thing making sense. I was even disappointed with the ending of the film (in my opinion it didn’t make sense at all, but I can`t give anything away). It was good to see Katie Holmes back in a lead role and she did what she could with a weak script. Guy Pierce is a good actor, but this won`t be one he will be remembered for. As for Bailee Madison she is one of my favorite child actors. She is so adorable on screen, but this role simply wasn’t for her. She is much better in comedic roles, than in scary movies. The role of a depressive and sad kid wasn`t for her. I liked her much better in Just Go With It (a terrible movie starring Adam Sandler, but she was the best thing about it) and Brothers (a drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman). I actually decided to watch this film because I wanted to see what she could do in a horror movie (besides the fact that I wanted to see Katie Holmes back in action). Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark fails in so many levels and I was really disappointed. I really hope a good scary movie comes out before the year ends. I think the last horror movie I enjoyed was Paranormal Activity (and it`s been two years already).

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My Review: Just Go With It (4/10)

¨Feels good being honest, doesn`t it? Were you telling the truth when you said you might be in love with me? ¨

It actually feels good being honest; unfortunately there is nothing honest about this romantic comedy. The movie is just one big lie after another and I simply couldn`t just go along with it. It made no sense at all and at the same time a five year old could know where this movie was heading from the opening credits. The jokes and gags have been told before by Adam Sandler himself and repeated over and over again in his movies. It was funny in his early Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore days, but listening to the same joke repeated time after time again is simply not funny anymore. As for the romance, if you`ve ever seen a chic flick you`ve also seen Just Go With It and it`s clichés. Dennis Dugan has directed Adam Sandler at least half a dozen times before and they seem to be making the same movie over and over again. I don`t blame them: their films make money in the box office and they seem to be having a lot of fun at work because they don`t even have to try to make a good film because audiences simply are willing to just go with it. If you are the type of viewer who doesn`t really care too much about originality, good acting, or good scripts, then you probably will have a good time just going with it, but I guarantee you will forget you even saw it the next day. This movie was just so predictable from the very beginning to the very end that I simply couldn`t just go with it.

This time around Adam Sandler is Danny, a plastic surgeon and a player with the ladies. His heart was broken several years ago on his wedding night, but he also learned an important lesson on how to get girls to fall for him. He keeps the ring and tells the girls he is married, but is going through a rough time. Apparently they all seem to have a weakness for broken hearted and committed men so he gets what he wants: a one night stand and no relationships. The only person who he is really honest to is his assistant, Katherine (Jennifer Aniston), who somehow finds his ¨romantic stories¨ amusing. She is a single loving mother of two children: Maggie (Bailee Madison) and Michael (Griffin Gluck). The player finally ends up falling in love with a gorgeous and much younger woman named Palmer (Brooklyn Decker) who is a sweet math teacher. Danny never actually plays the married card with her, but the next morning she discovers the ring in Danny`s pocket and is upset that she has slept with a married man. Her parents got divorced and she had promised herself she would never wreck a marriage. Danny really likes this girl so he does the only thing he really knows how to do which is to lie. He says that he is getting divorced, that his wife cheated on him, but Palmer won`t believe him until she hears it from his soon to be ex-wife. Danny asks Katherine to act as her, but through a mix up her kids also get involved and now Palmer wants to spend time with the kids so they all travel together to Hawaii and the lies begin to build.

Adam Sandler always finds the best locations to make his movies. He really makes sure he is going to have a fun time while filming. I don’t blame him; he is a great comedian and really doesn’t have to try too hard. He has proven he can act in dramatic roles as well like Drunk Punch Love or Reign Over Me, but those great movies simply don`t get that much recognition or bring in huge box office numbers, so why stress out when audiences continue to go with his light comedies? Jennifer Aniston is a great actress, and she was alright in this movie. Brooklyn Decker might be beautiful, but she isn`t a good actress. My favorite performance came from Bailee Madison; the girl has a lot of charisma and she delivered the most laughs in my opinion. Nicole Kidman and Dave Matthews play secondary characters and they share some moments, but the script really didn`t help anyone out that much. Nick Swardson played the role of the dumb and obsessed with girls’ character that always shows up in an Adam Sandler film. His sole purpose in the movie is just to be ridiculous. I didn’t find him funny at all. I really don’t understand how Sandler`s character was planning on having a long relationship with this girl with all these lies he was telling her. How does a loving mother go along by dragging her kids into this mess? I mean the kids weren’t going to disappear after the ¨family vacation, ¨ but I guess it really didn`t matter because we knew exactly what direction the movie was going to go anyway. All we had to do was sit down, leave our brains at home, and just go with it.

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