And I took my wife out to dinner instead of seeing the Green Hornet last night.
First the duds. Sorry, these aren’t delicious Milk Duds. These are movie duds!
I finally watched this film, and I’m sure it was a better experience than going to see Season of the Witch. Cage is really hit-or-miss, although his acting cannot be blamed in this movie. The story idea is good, the special effects great, but there’s just something wrong. It’s like the film missed an essential beat. It’s as if the screenwriters knew what needed to happen but missed the steps of convincing us how the plot moved from point A to point B. It’s also a mix of serious, funny, and who knows what. I blame Disney - they wanted to hit all the happy Disney notes but forgot to compose a complete song. Plus I spent the entire movie listening to Jay Baruchel speak and thinking “Well, there’s Hiccup - where’s Toothless?”
I don’t think the lack of 3D hurt my viewing. Or rather, I doubt it would’ve helped. They promise this is the last installment, and I hope they stick to their guns. Overall, it was better than the third, which was lame, un-funny, and often cringe-worthy. The problem with this one? There was no humor. It lacked the fun, fairy-tale humor of the first two movies. It was dark and serious. (The storyline is similar to It’s A Wonderful Life - what if Shrek had never been born?) It’s not that the jokes weren’t funny - there weren’t any. I was disappointed.
How to describe this movie? Think The Royal Tenenbaums merged into a clay animation children’s story. Think awful! I don’t like director Wes Anderson’s films - I think they’re weird, pretentious, boring, and lacking in humor. Add that this is based on a Roald Dahl story and you just know it’s going to be weird. I didn’t make it to the end. Critics may have loved it, but Mr. Fox is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of movies… (And this is NOT a kid's movie!!!)
Those were the duds of my week. Any duds you’d like to share? Warn some of us unsuspecting fools?
