Guy's Reviews

This one is an important story for Ace, especially given the direction the series was going to take had the following season not been cancelled. Many fans love and respect it, but I found it slow, ponderous and dreary. There was a lot of over acting and time wasting in a serial that could easily have been cut down to three episodes.

The kids liked it more than I did. It is very formulaic love story with cliched bad guys and predictable twists. It does not stand out in any way from other animated feature films with talking animals.

Half the length and no flash backs would have helped, otherwise it was fun.

At least 20 times better than the original tripe! I loved this despite Ang Lee style over directing. I think they were trying to give it a comic book feel. They came close. In many ways this was true to the comic series c1994, though Cage is rubbish as Blaze. The visualisations of the hellfire combined with good camera angles portrayed the rider's bike really well.

The sound of this remastered release wasn't very good but otherwise its a fun story with lots of travelling in the TARDIS and several factions in play.

Well do I remember how this one was much grittier than the usual Peter Davison story. Its a little different, but following on from the mediocre Planet of Fire, this is a good thing. Amongst Doctor Who stories this one stands out, not only for the grittiness, but also for the ultimate struggle and scrifice the Doctor faces. Most fans put Caves of Androzani in their top ten list and with good reason.

While Dreamworks and Disney have sold out to the toy companies producing big budget spectacular displays devoid of substance, the Japanese industry has stayed true to its roots and showsn that animation is a medium for story telling. In this way they have produced magic.

Quite awful. We only watched it for the sake of continuity.

Last couple of Buddies movies were not so good, bit is a return to the form of Snow and Space Buddies. Mostly it rips off Indian Jones

Well filmed but seems to be more about the project and less about the mantas

Longer than it needed to be. Over-directed. No chemistry between Holmes and Watson. Moriati lacked motive. Ideas from the first movie over done in this one. Ending unclear. Stephen Fry took his clothes off...

Cute story. Second rate animation.

A great story from a great era of the show. UNIT soldiers vs Arthurian knights in a battle over excalibur and a nuclear missile. Will the doctor become Merlin... Disc 1 contains the four episodes and the extras. Disc 2 contains the four episodes without breaks and no extras. There is no point getting disc 2.

I was totally uninspired by the trailer, but my kids laughed, so I got the DVD. The plot was not funny, the voices were wrong, the guest stars were B list. The songs were ordinary and often had no muppets in them. Jason Seagal may have worked hard on this, but sadly he produced a movie that bignotes him at the expense of the muppets or would have had he not stunk up the screen. There was no need to have him sing. Even the nostalgic moments didn't interest me and I found excuses to leave the kids watching it without me. They have no interest in watching it again, but they will like some of the original muppet movies.

An all time favorite of mine, the family loved it too. Who else but Sylvester McCoy could use the words "unlimited rice pudding" while taunting daleks?

A very good story with very poor animation. Lots of running. Tennent has some great lines.

The Crab with the Golden Claws mixed in with the Secret of the Unicorn and then for good measure elements were added from Red Rackham's Treasure, the Shooting Star and the Castafiore Emerald. Five stories wrapped up into something that looks and feels like a single story. Jackson has treated the source material with respect and added to it well. Great movie. What matters most is that it is better than the most recent Asterix movies.

I loved the way they borrowed the choreography from Rocky, mostly II and V but the woman on the Zeus team was certainly ripping off IV and there was a battle against a guy with a mohawk. Then the commentator called the robot the Junk Yard Dog before changing its title to The People's Champion. It was good the Doctor Pepper paid for the product placement, it was the only way they'd pay the royalties on the above. Seriously though, the cinematography was poor with too much action in too much dark. Only two battles in daylight and the rest in dark stadiums with spot lights to keep the viewer confused. This was made for a bigger screen than I have. My second concern was that there was way too much drama, particularly in the second half which was not necessary. Even the Stallone classic Over the Top (also ripped off by this) got to business when the timing called for it. Thats it. Fails as robot boxing due to cinematography and fails as father / son bonding movie by being boring. The doco in the extras about how they made the robots was good though, but meaningless without first watching the second rate movie.

Another top quality Rumble. Well scripted and performed with a great mix of comedy and drama. Leaves you looking forward to Mania.

Good for fans of the Squad, but lacks the fun of the first series. In this we set six solo adventurres in 'what if' style.

There seem to be a hundred documentaries on the Titanic (appropriate for the centenary) Seconds from Disaster is one of the better ones. Secrets of the Titanic was not so good. If you only watch one titanic documentary this year, it probably doesn't matter which one.

Do an internet search on "top 10 doctor who stories of all time" and this will be listed on 80% of the pages you find. As a Doctor Who story it has a great setting in Victorian England, solid villains in Creel and Sin and a story that slowy builds over six episodes. The beauty of it though are the wonderful characters of Jago and Lightfoot. At the time there had been talk of a spin off for them. Now their adventures are available in audio format from Big Finish. The special effects are typical of the BBC at the time. The giant killer rat looks like a zhu zhu pet, but if you can suspend your disbelief on this, the story is first class. Tom Baker and Leela were never my favorites but they are a lot better than the likes of wide eyed David Tennent and Rose Tyler.

Its a B grade romantic comedy / road movie, but it has geocaching in it and funny magician. I suggest making liberal use of the fast forward button. Just watch the geocaching and the magician. Then go to geocaching.com and try geocaching yourself. Geocaching is fun. This movie promotes it well. I gave this 1 star for the rom/com and two for the geocaching.

Cute and fun. A christmas special, not a full sequal. Its a fun half hour watch with a bunch of special features. In truth it kept the boys busy longer than a full length movie usually does.

A long lead up to a final battle that was poorly coreographed, followed by another batte that was inconclusive. I believe this falls under the category of failed pilot. A shame really. I like some of the characters, but they did nothing.

The boys loved it and the adults thought it was entertaining too.

It would be unfair to compare this to the greatest barbarian movie ever made. Nothing can match that 1982 cinematic masterpiece, but this is a very good barbarian movie in its own right and easily the best barbarian movie of this decade. What it lacks in plot, it makes up for by not needing one. The lower your expectations are, the more you'll enjoy it.

Poor animation, boring characters, unnspiring setting. Read Kali's review as its pretty accurate, except I would add that FF7 is still good today. My 9 year old played it and loved it.

G rated? Just because there are talking puppies and its from Disney, does not give it an automatic G. This had witch craft, black magic, demonic possession, supernatural beings, animal sacrifice and the devouring of souls. Did I miss anything. The ratings system is broken in this country.

This poorly animated, asinine farce, produced clearly for the purpose of selling toys, insulted my intelligence and made my head hurt, so I walked away and let my kids enjoy it. They said it was good, though I find their reviews to be highly dubious at best. I believe they intend to watch it again before it gets returned. Mercifully this one is genuinely G rated so you can walk away and let the kids face it alone. Then again, they weren't really alone. They had their Zhu Zhu pets lined up to watch it as well.

The landing in fog at the start of the movie was one of the most tension filled scenes I have ever witnessed. Modern movie makers would not be able replicate that as the art his been lost in favour of special effects.

Very hard to read subtitles and an odd plot. Great action though. You could switch off the story, ignore the reading and just watch and it was okay.

Its a fun movie but so full of crude humour as to take the enjoyment out of it. The Trailer was not an accurate representation of what to expect.

The swashbuckling adventure and battles between rogues and knights were fun, but this season got a bit bogged down in supernatural themes which seemed a little out of place, and were less enjoyable to watch.

Contemporary moralising takes precednece over historical accuracy, but otherwise a good PG adventure series for kids who like mysteries and romans. Its actually rather light on in the mystery department. The kids are enjoying it though. The parents not so much.

Tedius dribble even the kids got bored with it.

2 of its 3 academy awards were well earned. The story has not aged, but the story telling style has. This could have been half an hour shorter. On the plus side, there were two great actors with some intense drama. The movie was gold, but don't let that get to you.

Brittish comedies often suffer from not knowing if they are a comedy or a drama. This was no exception. The drama was poor, the sattire was ill timed, but the belly laughs were there and made up for the rest. The main character accidently killing Bin Laden was probably funny last year, but not so funny this year. Don't expect too much, get immersed in it and then let the laughs take you when they are there. Its really a three star movie, I gave it four because I'm still laughing so at some perverse level it must have worked.

As a trilogy apadted to a movie, it was either too short or too long and failed at the key task of telling a story. Had some great moments though.

What do you expect? Its four pokemon episodes featuring wobbuffet. All from the Johto region, beginning with his first meeting with Team Rocket. Episode 3: Wayward Wobbuffet is probably the funniest pokemon episode ever made.

I don't understand why they took a story that screams to be about light and colour and then made it in black and white. The trailer looked good, but the rest of it didn't. The 1982 movie was way better. This one just stinks. Its references to the original were poor. Its continuity with the original was wrong. Full face helmets on programs made them impossible to tell apart, especially during the fancy over directed action sequences. I watched half of it last night. I have not yet decided if I will bother finishing it.

Much like a submarine movie where two subs silently circle each other despertaly listening to pinpount the others position, in this movie its two groups of miners under the trenches digging and listening for each other. Very claustrophobic and well filmed show a group of WW1 heroes previously unseen

It may well be a good movie, but the subtitles were too small and against a background that made them unreadable.

It did run too long, but other than that it was great fun. Much better than Good Bad Ugly. The character were clearer and better establised. Plus the feel of it was better.

Little John and WIll Scarlet were great. A sensational comedy duo. The rest of the cast sucked (especially Robin Dunne and Julian Sands) The plot was dogey and the script was poor. They tried to talk in formal speech, but failed with modern idioms popping in: "I took out an insurance policy years ago" what exactly did that line mean in 1172? Final duel was poor, though the inital staff battle on the log over the river was very good. I'm glad I watched it on the small screen as the effects would have looked very poor on the big one.

Yawn, original stories are very poor examples of the super hero genre. Her regular adventures would make good stories. We want to see episodes of her, not an overdone origin story that is mostly set outside of our world. Looked good though

Special effects much better than the clat animation of the original, but in all other ways this was inferior. I mean Liam Neeson as Zeus?? Story? there was no story, this was just a series of battles placed one after the other.

No too long (72 minutes) great visuals, fun characters, lots of action, no singing.

From the beginning this felt tedious and forced. It was as if the story of Life of Brian had been changed and tedious details had been turned into boring and unnecessary songs. But then things started to improve with some classic python whit and timing. There were references to the classic python shows worked into the Brian story. I was rolling on the floor laughing by the end.

"The future is not fixed. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves" Given the context, these words spell "no sequals" as surely as "There can be only one" and yet here it is. This one though is quite good. It feels like it was written by a fan of the first two movies and certainly shows respect for them. This alone makes it worth while. I will admit I was not in a hurry to watch a Bale/Worthington Terminator movie and certainly not in a hurry after T3. Yet, it turned out to be a worth while and entertaining watch. I'll watch it again for sure.

Funny yes, but way too many expletives. Once you get past the langauage there are some very good laughs.

This series is getting more ridiculous with each instalment. These pokemon have been getting ludicrously powerful and now the plot involves time travel as well as the dimension hopping of the last few movies. The kids liked it, but not as much as the simpler series.

It looks very pretty. I think that as soon as an animated movie goes underwater, the animators decide to put the extra effort in. My son sat with his pokemon handbook out reading up on every pokemon that appeared on screen, and he was kept busy.

Another perfect example of the principle that if your expectations are low enough, you can enjoy anything. I expected no plot, I got it. I expected sophmoric humor, I got it. I expected a premise that rivalled Hudson Hawk, I got it. I also got a few really good laughs I hadn't expected

This is not a rip off of the lion king, its a sequal to the original Kimba the White Lion, though one could be excused for not seeing the difference. For kids who like talking animals having an adventure its good, for adults looking for some nostalgia its not so great.

As a Roald Dahl story, it if dark, funny and touching. The plot a little complex for younger kids. Its good, but not great. I found George Clooney's voice distracting.

I'm a fan of Disney sequals. Usually they are short, simple, good for kids and not full or merchandising or jokes that are meant for parnts. This was no exception. Its a fun story about a young dog having an adventure. This is the kind of thing that kids actually like

Tim Burton is written all over this. Visually beautiful with some well defined well portrayed characters in a logical easily followd plot all told in less than 90 minutes. There is truly nothing bad about the movie other than it being scary for kids. But its Tim Burton so what do you expect? (Actually Tim is only the coproducer, but his influence is all over this. And in a brilliant piece of casting irony, the scientist responsible for destroying the world is voice by the cousin of Robert Oppenheimer. There are other great voice talents in it too making the characters even more believable. The other plus is that it doesn't try to be anything it isn't.

In a sad sort of way it was good. That is, if you have low enough expexctations of a move, you can be surprised. There were three of four really good laughs in there. No plot to speak of and poort characters, plus a really weak final battle, but entertaining anyway.

Yawn! Yes its very pretty, but thats about all and you can be very pretty in half an hour, which is about all the time that was needed to expound what little plot was there.

Disc 1 has three docos on it: elephants, lions and bears. The bears doco is really good. They look at about five different types of bears and use at least six different designs of cameras so you get to look at the technology involved which is what makes this series different to other series. Brilliant for kids as they get a double documentary and very entertaining for parents as well since this is more than just another animal documentary. The other episodes were not as interesting. Lions for instance only had one type of camera and was only looking at one type of animal so becmae nothing more than a long lion documentary with occassion clever filming. Its worth getting for the bears episode, just ignore the other two.

This was a really good forty minute movie...that some idiot padded out to an hour and a half, The kids got bored and I was pleading with the thing to end. It had a promising start though, it just got lost after that.

Suffers from having no intended audience. Too assinine for adults, yet too heavy on contemporary refrences for kids to appreciate. Hard to follow and overly busy. The characters fail to be lovable.

The turtles moved like frog and the movie lacked a beginning, otherwise good though there seemed to be some ambiguity in the monsters they were battling. Leonardo was again protayed as having no leadership qualities or personality, but at least that was story related this time. Raphael was portrayed really well. Best character in the movie. Donatello and Michelangelo? Were they even in this one? Splinter's guidance was either illogical or simply went nowhere. The turtles should dump him and get on with their own lives.

The kids loved it but had trouble understanding the plot. Its quite an odd movie, in that there is almost no dialogue in the first half, so you have to watch and see what is going on. The subtestual messages were totally lost on the kids. It was fun for them to watch though and they enjoyed seeing one robot chase another which is all the plot they needed.

What I hated most about this was having to admit that Sly Stallone is avery good director. Make no mistake, this is a blood and guts machine guns movie, but it is a good one and there is more to it than that. Stallone has crafted this so that the violence is viewed from three different perspectives as three groups take a similar journey with different results. First there are the Christian missionaries, determined to live peacefully and reject violence, but by the end of the film have learned that violence has its place. Then there are the mercenaries. Ready to kill, but not willing to risk their lives for a cause. Rambo teaches them that they must be responsible. Then there is Rambo himself; a killing machine created by the US military, hiding from the world and also himself. He learnes that he has a place in the world and that he is needed and through this he is able to find himself again. That is a lot of depth for a blood and guts movie, but cmbined with Stallone's direction produces a very good movie.

Mostly harmless. Essentially the story of Bambi and his relationship with his father in the wake of the death of his mother. It begins with a kind of mourning that would have been good twenty years earlier when kids were crying about Bambi's mother, but I guess its never too late. Bambi and his animal friends have fun while Bambi learns about courage and responsibility and his father learns about family. I don't recall a single song from it, so there were rather bland, but not too many of them and this time no major characters get killed, so its easy to let the kids watch it.

The flaw of the movie is that it has no intended audience. In many ways it is visually stunning. Spike Jonze captures the heart of the book, but then pads it out too much. This is not a good movie for children because it is a work of art and therefore boring. It is not a good movie for adults before it is based on a children's story and has a child for the main character. Nostalgia holds our interest, but we do not relate to Max the way we should. In short, neither adult nor child will get 101 minutes of value out of this and that is a shame since the movie was very well made. Then again I don't like the book much either.

My wifw atched it and said 'if you like the first twenty minutes you'll like the movie, otherwise don't bother.' I didn't like the first twenty minutes. Don't bother

I think it a very good presentation of a rather poor musical. Not one song from it was memorable. Depp is good, but not great with his voice sounding too much like Jack Sparrow. The story was not fully resolved and the 'shock' revelation at the end lacked impact. Very few of the characters have any depth, though this is typical in a musical. In short, I would not watch it again.

The opening matches were rather poor and the women's match was embarrassing to watch, but the Rey Mysterio vs Undertaker was a well scripted, well acted match up followed by a reasonable main event. Not the best Rumble ever, but fun to watch.

Lots of fun. The movie is clearly part 1 of three or a pilot for something bigger. The game begins in Rock Raiders, moves to Lego city where Clutch joins with Space Police and then the bulk of the movie is set in the Lego castle world. Sounds crazy, but works for the intended audience.

Disc 2 only has two episodes and they are not as good as the first three. I guess Stewart is getting further from his chosen field of volcanos. Still very good though, especially for young enquiring minds.

As a martial arts epic, this is a half decent comedy. The review and cover do not suggest that this movie is set almost entirely in modern day Hong Kong and focuses on the relationship between the noble warrior and a hooker. It starts during the Han dynasty where two brothers fight. A tibetan relic sends them through time to the modern day where they both find a place in the world until they cross paths again. Its entertaining.

Long episodes but good entertaining documentaries.

The effects were somewhat poor and a few of the concepts being introduced didn't sit well, but the core characters were strong and the premise was workable. Had the series been made, I'd have watched it.

A rather porr selection of matches. Only the TLC one is worth bothering with.

For its genre its good but not great. The actions sequences at the end were poorly directed. The story was not quite logical, but that is neither here nor there, what matters are the fights. In the first half the fights were well correographed, though lazily directed. In the second half both were lazy.

Not only a great super hero movie, but a great Avengers movie. The resurrection of Captain America makes a great tool to introduce the team and having Bruce Banner working in the background leads up to the final battle well. All the characters seem true enough to the comics to make it good for fans as well as new viewers. Plus, the story is good as is the animation quality.

Totally without soul. Was it the poor adaptation of the original movie (rather than basing it on the original story)? Was it the poor characterisation of the muppets? Was it basing the movie on Ashanti and her poor rendition of Dorothy? Was it the pointless songs that were written by a hack the morning before shooting start? Or was it just allo f the above? I think it was. This is a very poor muppet movie combined with a very poor wizard of oz. The worst of both worlds. One moment worth mentioning. Upon meeting the Wizard of Oz, Kermit asks if he's related to Frank Oz.

Its a lot of fun, perhaps moreso if you know the actors. With minimal songs it isn't too annoying, its just a good retelling of a classic story.

A very good Asterix presentation. The characters looked and acted right and the new characters fitted in quite well. My only issue was the voice of Asterix didn't quite sit right, but otherwise this was a lot of fun for the whole family, by which I mean the kids and parents all actually enjoyed it. At 75 minutes it is a good length.

The episodes in this were a little hard to follow, but the characters are presented as they should be and the kids liked it.

Its good. Its fun. Theres a lot of hero action, but its probably a bit too much about the black panther, so you don't see as much of the avengers. The relationship between Jan and Hank was poorly presented, but didn'ty detract from the action. The Ultimate Gag reel in the bonus features was worth getting the DVD out for alone. That had us rolling on the floor.

I think too much time was chewed up on the origin story which didn't seem particularly necessary given how similar it was to the live action version. The characters were portrayed well and the variety of iron armour suits was what I was after. In the end the battle scenes were good, though it lost a little by making the Mandarin such a mystical enemy.

No ultimatul was issued at any time during the movie. A trivial point perhaps, but what is language for? Action sequences were poorly filmed (much like the other bourne movies) which made it hard to watch. The plot was almost non existent and best summed up as "run away from the CIA until the movie ends"

Plot? Hard to find and what was there made little sence. Interesting characters driving fast cars? Yes there was lots of that. Good for a seven year old? Apparently. I loves this series.

Mad Max 2 not only defined a genre but remains today as the definitive work of post apocalyptic road movies. Some of the acting is wooden and some of the plot makes little sense (the fuel economy for example) but visually this is unmissable. Dean Semler built his career on this movie. He brings you right close to ground level with his car-cam and you experience every twist n the road. The action is first class, especially given the date and the stunt driving seems flawless. Add to that some powerful characters and you have a true classic of the cinema. Vernon Wells is brilliant as Wez whose rivalry with Max builds across the movie from first scene to last. Bruce Spence shines as the gyro captain whose relationship with Max reveals the hard edge of Max's shadowy soul. Forget the rest of the Mad Max trilogy, this one stands alone. It has been imitated countless times, but none have ever had the full impact of the original Road Warrior.

I found it to be a bit busy visually and being part 3 it started out hard to follow. My son doesn't want to return it - ever. He talks about it all the time, draws vehicles from it... Must be a good movie for kids. I've added 1 and 2 to mt queue for him. Maybe that will help him to return this one.

Suffers from beinga prequel, but at least has good action and effects. Story is all swiss cheese, characters are all wrong, but nothing that wasn't expected.

No question that the kids loved this one. To them it was a super hero Air Buddies movie. I actually thought it was a good rendition of the old cartoon, though I initially expected a more anthropomorphic hero. For what it is its good.

I have been enjoying this. Its entertaining, but no better than what I can watch on TV anyway.

Quite interesting, but G rated? I think not. There is a detailed scene where a pod of male orcas are frollocking, bumping each other and rubbing against each other with very prominent errections. I count myself lucky my kid didn't ask any questions.

The first few matches were kind of poor, but it did pick up. The tripple threat match was good, but HBK vs the Undertaker was awsome and worth getting the DVD just for that one match.

66 Minute running time is merciful on parents. I had trouble being in the same room as it, but my seven year old loved it and it really was a four star movie for him. It didn't try to be anything other than what it was.

Lots of fun and very true to the old TV series. I got the feeling it was made by fans of the old show, certainly the characterisations followed it really well. Fight scenes were not polished, but again that was the style of the old series. It was fun to watch. Only problem for me was that Pigsy was suh a minor character, but otherwise very enjoyable.

The Buddy movies are great (for a seven year old) and mercifully they only run for 80 minutes. My son loved this, it had his favorite dog characters going to the moon. Could a seven year old ask for any more than that? As an adult I had many issues (note that I am not the intended audience for the film) The children who own the buddies were all played by different actors and Air Bud never appeared at all. The plot was even more implausiable than the previous movies. The rip offs of other movies were both tacky and blatant. The four pups slow walking towards the camera 'right stuff' style; the russian on the space station being crazy Arageddon style and finally all the news reporters acting like it was Apollo 13. I gave it four stars because my seven year old loved it and you have a seven year old, they'll love it too.

Its a good movie, but its an epic when no epic was required. The story and characters are good, but there was nothing there that justified more than an hour and a half. The movie is really two stories. The first tells the fall of the samurai lord and the subsequent fall of his vassals. The second half is their story and their plot which is good, but drawn out a little. It is a good example of the genre though, and if you do have a fondness for the older Japanese movies then this is something you'll enjoy.

My seven year old loves the Buddies movies and this was no exception. There is nothing there to hold an adult's attention, but for the intended audience it was good.

There is a reason why Pirates is one of the most loved of the Savoy operettas. It is good. The music is great, the characters are entertaining, the jokes are timeless so any production of this musical will be good. This one fell short though. My first concern was the pirate king who appeared dressed as Jack Sparrow and then proceeded to do the whole show in the character of the same. This was not necessary or effective. The Pirate King has enough character that this wasn?t needed. In fact this got in the way of his true character. Other than that, the stage direction was good but didn?t translate well to the screen. The camera angels were often poor and the sound mixing tended to fail during the chorus numbers. If you want to see a good production of Pirates, watch the Jon English version. It is vastly superior.

I love this movie. It is an awsome, often forgotten SF classic. That said, the acting is apalling, the plot makes no sense and what there is of it has huge holes in it. The action sequences are dodgey and effects are second rate. The real challenge is deciding who the worst actor in the movie is. I think its Mick Fleetwood, but its a hard call. Regardless of all this, I really enjoy watching this movie.

My son loves knights. He'll watch any movie with knights in it, but there was no containing his boredom with this. Not a good movie for kids, not a good movie for adults.