17 Again (2009) Film Review - Zac Efron

Plot Summary - Fantasy-comedy about Mike (Matthew Perry), a thirty-something father of two teens who feels disappointed with his life - going nowhere in his job in pharmaceutical sales (they promote a bimbo - working there only two months - instead of him, a 16 year employee!) and on the brink of divorcing the wife he married after getting her pregnant his senior year in high school. Oddly, he is given a second chance when he visits his old school, encounters a strange janitor, and soon has fallen off a bridge and into something pretty weird - his body has become seventeen again (you knew that was coming!), but inside he's still the same man. Okay, now a teenager, Mike (Zac Efron), decides that this is his chance to try and do his life over - he decides to "go back to high school". Living with his longtime pal Ned, a sci-fi/fantasy geek to the core (you should see this guy's house!), he recruits Ned to pose as his "dad" and sign him up for school. Ned falls for the attractive female principal and Mike hopes to gain the success he once missed out on by joining the basketball team. But here's the twist - Mike's two teenage kids, Alex and Maggie, attend the same high school and he finds himself getting to know the kids he never really knew - and helping them out with their problems. Alex is being taunted by a bully, Maggie happens to be dating said bully (a real jerk). And meanwhile, Mike comes over to his new "friend" Alex's house and meets his mom (Leslie Mann), Mike's soon to be ex-wife, and he begins to see a side of her he had forgotten. Thing is, she thinks he's a teen!

Review - Okay, I thought this film was quite good, funny - very entertaining. I do always enjoy these sort of films - Freaky Friday, Big, etc. - body switching, age changing fantasy, that sort. This features lots of comic scenes involving Mike acting towards his children like a father - but they think he's just another kid at school, creating weird situations. Same with his relationship with the mom, he acts more like her husband than her son's friend. Mix-ups, confusion, it's all amusing. The film also features comedy in the form of an older man trying to think, dress, and act like a teenager. Rating - 9/10 stars

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) Film Review

Plot Summary - Odd and interesting fantasy/romance about Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), born in New Orleans as a baby who is an old man in his eighties but tiny like a baby (and looking pretty darn weird, I must say). His mother dead from child birth, Benjamin is abandoned by his father on the front porch of an old age home, where a black woman who works there adopts him as her own. Benjamin starts his life with all the ailments of an old person - at first he's got wrinkles, arthritis, rickety bones, sags and bags, balding head, and walks with a cane, but as he gradually gets older in years - he gets younger and more and more handsome physically!! A strange concept indeed - yet how intriguing! The romance - - Benjamin first meets Daisy (grown-up Daisy played by Cate Blanchett) when she is visiting her grandmother at the home - she a little girl, he a very old man, but they develop a life-long bond of friendship with love - and passion - to come, as his and her ages gradually meet in the middle, you could say.

Review - I enjoyed this close to three hour film - the film begins just after World War I and progresses to the current day. The story is related by character Daisy, now an old woman on her death bed, to her daughter (Julia Ormond) via a diary that was written by Benjamin. I enjoyed the way the period elements were done in this film - realistic costumes and time period feel helped draw me into each elapsing decade as Benjamin grows younger and younger. A few of the scenes were filmed to look like old film footage. Loved the Scott Joplin music, used in a few scenes (I love ragtime!). Rating - 10/10 stars

The Brothers Grimm (2005) Film Review - Terry Gilliam

Plot Summary - An early 19th-century fantasy/fairy tale telling the tale of the Grimm brothers (Heath Ledger and Matt Damon) who go about Germany with a con game posing their crew as witches and trolls and the like in villages driven by fables, then rid the town of said problem for cash rewards. Coming to one village they help solve the real situation of an enchanted evil forest and the disappearance of young girls from the village.

Review - A take-off on the Brothers Grimm fairy tales (which I loved to read when I was a kid, by the way) - with tiny elements of such stories as Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White and such spun together in a sort of messy way - I found this film a bit rambling and confusing - a disappointment as I am partial to fantasies, I'm a fan of director of the film, Terry Gilliam, and especially, I'm a HUGE fan of my lovely Heath Ledger. This film features the sort of stuff you might want in a fairy tale - witches and magic spells and evil men (and evil trees and evil wolf) and mud that forms into a creature - you name it - too bad it didn't work. Rating - 6.5/10 stars

Ghost Town (2008) Film Review - Ricky Gervais

Plot Summary - A romantic-comedy with a fantasy twist. Ricky Gervais plays Bertram Pincus, a NYC dentist who lacks people skills - basically just a loner who doesn't like people being around him. But one day after an operation in which he dies briefly on the operating table a strange thing happens - he can see ghosts! New York City is ghost town, full of lost spirits who have unfinished business and can't get to the other side. Dr. Pincus is the only living person who can see them, so the ghosts come to him for help - and he doesn't like the ghosts anymore than living people! The main ghost in this story is a dead husband (Greg Kinnear) seeking to ruin the new relationship of his wife (Tia Leoni), a woman who happens to live in Dr. Pincus' building. Comedy, romance, and ghost stuff to follow.

Review - This is a fun film - I love fantasies - I love ghost movies too - so not surprising I liked this. The ghostly special effects are well done, and - as usual - I tend to love films set in New York City! Lots of nice on-location scenes in the city, and a light touch of comedy here and there made for a nice watch. Rating - 8.5/10 stars

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) Film Review

Plot Summary - Fantasy adventure tale in which handsome young Prince Caspian (handsome is putting it mildly!) must quickly escape his kingdom and into the woods where the Narnians live, after his evil Uncle is out to kill him and take over the throne. Caspian is given a magic horn on his escape which he blows and ends up calling back to Narnia the four old kings and queens - that being the four London kids, Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy, from the first Narnia tale (ya know, where they go through the back of the wardrobe and into the magical land of Narnia). The kids find Narnia beautiful, but in ruins - they are back over a thousand years later than before, when they once ruled. Soon they have hooked up with the Prince and join forces in battling the evil Uncle (now the king) and his men to restore the kingdom to the Narnians.

Review - This is a really entertaining watch, such a wonderful escape into that land of dwarfs and talking animals (mainly here a badger and a mouse) and centaurs and the White Witch and all sorts of other beings, not to mention the Lion King, Aslan, himself. Okay, the film is more than half battles and sword fights - just a bit much for my taste, but I did really enjoy the experience as a whole. A cast of thousands, it seemed like, and well done special effects - dug that giant water Neptune creature! I am a sucker for fantasy, this film wasn't as great as the first Narnia film, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", but it certainly was a pleasure to spend some time in Narnia again. Great fun. Note: the young actress who plays Lucy is very special, she gets such a look of wonderment when she's obviously really looking at, like, a green screen to be done up with visual effects later. Rating - 9/10 stars