The Bat Cave

Alice In Wonderland – Tim Burton takes the Lewis Carrol tale and makes it his own by filming it in 3D with live actors. The combination of Tim Burton, the story, and Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter sounded promising at first, but the end result was disappointing. Perhaps animated characters don’t translate well to real life actors because most of the acting in this film was driving me nuts. I really had a hard time not turning it off and moving on to other things. I’ll note that I didn’t watch the movie in theaters or in 3D, which may have considerably increased my enjoyment, but alas, I’ll never know. D

Hot Tub Time Machine – Skipped this in theaters and heard it was pretty funny, so I was looking forward to its DVD release. It wasn’t quite as funny as I thought it would be, but it was still plenty enjoyable with a number of solid gags and laughs. The story was a little corny, but that was to be expected given the film’s title. Overall, I liked it and it’s quite possible this movie will be a grower like a lot of the better comedies of the past couple years. B-

Iron Man 2 – A solid follow up to one of the most surprising movies of 2008. Not as good as the original, but still a lot of fun. It seemed like Mickey Rourke’s character wasn’t given nearly enough screen time and never really felt like a major threat to Tony Stark. Downey was great once again and Don Cheadle was a fine replacement for Terrance Howard. Funny, with good action, and War Machine was a welcome addition. Not a great sequel, but certainly not bad either. B

Kick-Ass – I was really anticipating this one and the results were mixed. It had a fun feeling to it, but the main character really didn’t move me at all and almost all the other characters were pretty hollow as well. Kick-Ass never felt like a superhero of any sort to me… just a nerdy kid in a bad costume. Hit-Girl is what made this movie borderline awesome despite all its flaws. Not only is the character well written and an utter bad ass, but the young girl that plays her displays a ton of acting talent. The movie has some good action and is funny at times, but the story wasn’t executed spectacularly and the casting was questionable. C+

Nightmare On Elm Street – I’m a big old school horror franchise fanatic and Freddy Krueger has long been a fascination of mine. Unlike Jason Vorhees or Michael Meyers, a Freddy reboot was something I was looking forward to and thought could be well done. This remake is a fair attempt at updating an old classic. I liked the news of Jackey Earl Haley taking on the role of Krueger and although several critics disagree with me, I liked him a lot in the role. He was scary in a way that Robert Englund arguably hasn’t been in over two decades. The story leaves something to be desired, but so do the majority of slasher film scripts. If this isn’t a step in the right direction for the franchise, I don’t know what is. B-

Toy Story 3 – Review coming soon…

Youth In Revolt – Michael Cera stars in his normal role of a geeky and awkward adolescent trying to figure out how to succeed with women. Only this time there’s a twist! Cera’s character creates an alter-ego in order to become a bad ass. Needless to say, it comes off cheesy and doesn’t really provide any laughs. Cera’s star is starting to dim and this movie was a snoozer. F