Movie Reviews: Take 2

I've now seen 3 more movies (bringing my summer total up to 6...and I'm sure it will shortly be 7, as I'm dying to see the new Harry Potter movie). As before, I'll review them in the order that I liked them, which this time happens also to be the order I saw them in.

Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian
I actually thought this one was better than the first--it wasn't so much Ben Stiller-style awkward as just clever and funny. I especially liked it when the statues/paintings came to life--seeing giant sculpted balloon animals gallop about was just funny to me. I also really liked Amy Adams as Amelia Earheart; I thought she was more of a match for Larry than Carla Gugino's museum docent in the first one. Obviously, however, she goes back to being a wax figure at the end, but it was a fun, happy movie while it lasted.

Up
I went into this assuming it would be typical Pixar fare--happy, with good animation. WRONG.It was MUCH more serious this time, with heavy adult themes like infertility (which of course got me bawling), divorce (ditto), and death (I think you can probably detect a theme here). There were funny parts, of course, and the animation was great, but as I don't really like to mix tears and cartoons, it wasn't my favorite Pixar by far. Plus, the ending was only moderately happy. What gives?

Public Enemies
I went into this hoping it would be somewhat like The Untouchables. I have to say, they remain untouched. The plot was confusing and all over the place, the filming was odd (lots of face close-ups and quick swivels to other parts of the screen), I didn't get to see enough of the costumes and sets (the whole reason I go to see period films in the first place), and the characters were all very underdeveloped except for the three major ones, which really limited the storytelling capacity of the movie. In conclusion, I thought it was disappointing, but I was glad to see the return of LeeLee Sobieski at the end--even if it was as a clueless prostitute.


In non-movie news, I just realized I have a week off between work and school--hooray! I didn't think I did, so I'm very happy about this. I'm looking forward to some sleep...