Movie Review: Robots

Even though it's a kid's movie, I really enjoyed this movie. There's enough wiz-bang eye candy in this film to fill three movies. It was made by the folks that made Ice Age, and let me tell you, they give Pixar a run for their money and may even exceed them with this one. The attention to detail is phenomenal. I thought the voice acting was really good, although Robin Williams was a little over the top, but that's what you get when he's involved. The film centers around Rodney Copperbottom and his quest to follow his dream making inventions for master inventor Bigweld (Mel Brooks). Leaving his hometown to go to the big city, Rodney meets new freinds and an enemy named Ratchet (Greg Kinear), who has overthrown Bigweld and plans to eradicate the older robots for financial gain. It's up to Rodney and his gang of Rusties to save Robot City! I give this film ****1/2 out of *****, it was much better than I anticipated and a great film for kids and adults.

Movies in the Works

Keanu Reaves is in negotiations to star in a new Sinbad movie titled The 8th Voyage of Sinbad. He will be portraying the adventuresome hero and not the comic from the 80's.

Bruce Willis is to star in a psychic thriller called Solace in which his character is a former doctor with psychic abilities who is hot on the trail of a serial killer. Unfortunately for him, the killer is also psychic, damn!

Oscar winner Hilary Swank hangs up her boxing gloves to star in The Reaping. It's a supernatural tale centering on a myth debunker who sets out to prove a small boy is not a supernatural force in a religious Texas town.

M. Night's Next

M. Night Shymalan will write and direct his next feature currently titled The Lady in the Water. It's a scifi/thriller to be developed by Warner Bros. The film centers around an apartment building manager who finds a mermaid type creature swimming in the apartment's pool. Disney was originally going to make the film, but in the end decided that it wasn't for them.

Horror/SciFi DVD releases for 3/29

The Horror Within
Ring of Darkness
Ripper 2: Letters from Within
Screamplay

Sad week for releases this time around. Just in case you're wondering, Ring of Darkness has nothing to do with The Ring, but it does star Adrienne Barbeau!

Ring 3 Probable

With the opening weekend success of The Ring 2, there is already talk of a third installment. Hideo Nakata, the director of both Ringu and the Ring 2 remake has expressed an interest in making the third one. With so many people complaining how bad the second was, maybe the studios should wait and see how much it makes this week before putting anything behind it. I have a feeling there will be a large dropoff in the box office.

And The Villian For Spiderman 3 is....

VENOM!!! Yes, what everyone has been hoping for apperently is going to happen. Joblo.com is reporting that the black clad supervillian will be played by Thomas Hayden Church. The entire article is available by clicking the link.
http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=6961

Book of the Week: Breed by Owl Goingback

Besides having one heck of a cool name, Owl Goingback is also a very good writer. He knows how to craft a nice ghost story, with quite a bit of historical information about the location of his story. That happens to be St. Augustine, Florida for this book. There's something astir in the historic old Tolomato cemetary and the spirit of none other than Chief Tolomato enlists the help of a tour guide to aide him in stopping the deadly force that's been unleashed. There are some good comic moments between the deceased Chief and his helper, Ssabra Onih. Owl is also very adept at creating inventive and detailed ways for his characters to bite the dust. Breed is a very entertaining read from a relatively new writer who has alot of promise ahead of him. I give it **** out of *****.

Movie of the Week: The Frighteners

Michael J. Fox stars in this strange mix of ghost story, comedy and serial killer pic. Directed by none other than LOTR's Peter Jackson, the movie moves at a nice pace and has more than it's share of visual treats. As a matter of fact, it was the last movie Jackson worked on before taking on Tolkien's trilogy. Fox stars as Frank Bannister, a psychic investigator who enlists the help of a few ghosts to help scam money out of people for ridding them of his ghosts. The film turns spooky when Death actually comes calling and starts killing people and leaving a numerical calling card on the heads of it's victims. It's up to Frank to find out what is doing the killing and find a way to stop it. Along for the ride are great performances from John Astin, Dee Wallace Stone, Jake Busey and a show stopping Jeffrey Combs. If any actor other than Combs was cast for his role, the film would never have been that same, or as good. This is a movie I can watch again and again, it's just that fun. I give it ****1/2 out of *****.

Ring Rules the Weekend

The Ring 2 proved once again that Horror is a hot commodity for today's moviegoer, stealing the number one spot from family favorite Robots. Ring 2 managed to pull in 36 million over the weekend, despite the advanced bad reviews of the film.