jonathanwr Reviews

The Best Two Years (2004)

awesome! (if you're LDS)

[10/10 · 20 August 2006]

This is a great movie, I loved it! Then again, I'm LDS, and I don't know how a non-Mormon would see it. If you are LDS, I highly recommend it. Be warned though, this is not necessarily a Mormon comedy. It may come across as a comedy, and it does have lots of funny parts, but the movie is so deep the parts aren't nearly as funny as "RM" or "The Home Teachers". If you want a goofier, more hilarious Mormon comedy, you should see one of those movies. This movie is a combination comedy/drama, so don't watch it just for the comedy. Watch it knowing that it's a more thought-over Mormon movie. If you're LDS too, you'll probably love it.

Cars (2006)

don't be fooled; this movie is just as good as any other Pixar movie

[9/10 · 21 July 2006]

I was a little bit uncomfortable with the whole cars idea at first, I thought making a world full of talking cars would be a bit too far. Then I remembered that they've already done that kind of thing with their other movies, like A Bug's Life or Monsters, Inc. (and Disney has done it with Dinosaur). And the idea fit nicely, just like all the other movies. That part was good. The plot began with big-shot Lightning McQueen's race, and the movie showed a mix of what McQueen was really doing and what he was thinking about, so it was pretty confusing. The story really only begins when McQueen is driving to California in Mack the truck. That's when the plot and the computer animation gets started, in the Pixar spirit. I thought they did a really good job of showing what it was like to drive on the Highway. About in the middle of the movie the story starts to get emotional. Pixar has been getting more dramatical lately; a good example was Finding Nemo. Cars was also emotional in some parts. I didn't mind; I liked what they were doing. Their messages were things like "keep your promises" and "think about other people instead of yourself". These are really good morals, not like the ones Disney has been using that don't even make sense: "follow your heart", "belive in yourself", "have faith and trust". So I thought the emotional parts were a big improvement. I was really satisfied with the ending; McQueen uses his fame to encourage people to come to the town of Radiator Springs, and all the citizens of the town finally get customers again. I'd give it a 10/10, but I demoted it to 9/10 for the flashy, confusing start.

Hoodwinked! (2005)

this movie has everything!

[10/10 · 10 July 2006]

Hoodwinked is a fairy-tale-spoof, low-quality computer animated movie, but the video game quality animation doesn't make it worse. It makes it a bit more quaint. I personally like this new idea of taking fairy-tales and changing them around like this. They did a good, funny job of making a good story out of it. The first part of the movie has four people telling the story from each point of view, which is another really cool idea. My favorite part was when they find out the granny is secretly an extreme sports fanatic. The movie is also very clean. At the point in the movie where it introduces the woodsman, it starts out with his telling about his dream to join this yodeling team and travel the world. At the same time it shows how the woodsman tries out for a commercial and fails, and he gets all disappointed. I kept waiting for the movie to make a joke about the big dim-witted guy who wants to be famous. They never did. At the end of the movie he actually joins the group. They didn't put it in theaters probably because of the low-quality animation and that it was about TV-show-length. I suppose the one bad thing about the movie was that it could have been just a bit longer, and just a bit more plot. But even as it is, I give it a 10/10.

Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002 Video)

Good with kids under 10, otherwise hard to appreciate

[3/10 · 3 July 2006]

I've always thought that Cinderella II was the worst movie I've ever seen, (followed by Peter Pan 2, and some other sequels like The Lion King 2 and the Hunchback of Notre Dame 2). All these movies are made with the same idea; because the movie has no plot, they try to make up for that by filling it with jokes. I'm not saying the jokes are bad, but they make up most of the movie. The first time I saw the movie, I would have given it a 1/10. But now I think about it, most kids don't care how good the original movie was, they just care that the movie is entertaining. I still think the movie was a bad sequel, but that doesn't mean it's horrible. Now I think it deserves a 3/10.