This wonderful fantasy tale stars Johnny Depp as a not-quite-real teenager who was built by an eccentric inventor. The old man died before he could finish him, so Edward has knife blades where his fingers would be. A well-meaning Avon lady (Diane Wiest) finds him living alone in his crumbling castle, and brings him home to live with her family, which includes daughter Kim (Winona Ryder). Edward is naive and timid, but so sweet and helpful that he soon becomes the darling of the neighborhood. He is smitten with Kim, which angers her bully of a boyfriend (Anthony Michael Hall).

Diane Wiest is perfect as the ditsy and always-cheerful mom. Ryder is convincing as a selfish and spoiled teen. Hall is the villian you love to hate. The star, of course, is Johnny Depp. As Edward, he is painfully shy and lovelorn; his performance is so heart-wrenchingly delicate that you ache for him in every scene. Covered with white make-up and with only a few words of dialogue, Depp proves he is a very talented actor. The wonderful and quite frail Vincent Price, as Edward’s loving creator, will surely bring a tear to your eye.

This completely unique film blends comedy, fantasy, and romance to make a sentimental fairy tale that both teens and adults will enjoy. It is a heart-breaker; bring your hankie.

The kids really enjoyed this. At first, “Ice Age: The Meltdown” looks like the inevitable sequel to the famous 20th Century Fox animated blockbuster, trying to cash in the success of the previous movie but that wasn’t the case. This new adventure of the prehistoric mammals manages to stay on its own legs and delivers nothing but great fun becoming a worthy sequel. That alone is an achievement in its own right.

“The Meltdown” continues with the style of its predecessor both in humor and animation, so those who fell in love with the original will love the sequel too. The difference however, is in the fact that now Manny is our main character. We get to know more about this character apparently anti-social and cynic, but who in the inside feels very lonely after the loss of his family. Sid and Diego make good sidekicks in this adventure and while their roles in the film are somewhat diminished, they still are very well-developed characters. Scrat, the nut-obsessed squirrel is back too in his constant quest for his lost nut, giving slapstick humor of the finest type in every scene he is in.

It is always hard for sequels to live up to the expectations, specially in family-oriented animation films, but director Carlos Saldanha and his team manage to make a funny movie that never gets boring or tiresome (something vital as it is a movie mainly oriented for kids).

While probably the story is not exactly original or complicated writers Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow make up for it with good character development and funny one-liners that fit the movie tone very good. Two new characters, the young possums Crash (Sean William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck) are a welcomed addition to the family, as well as Ellie (Queen Latifah), the lost mammoth.

Ellie, Manny and their relationship is a very important subplot in the movie, and one that was perfectly handled by the director and his crew. While Diego’s subplot was also interesting and served as basis for very good jokes, it didn’t had enough screen-time; a shame in my opinion, but overall the movie was very good. The only problem I had with it was the language and innuendos. Yes, the PG rating warned of that, however it is a cartoon and maybe we need to let the movie producers know that we don’t have to have foul language and sexual innuendos to make a movie good.

To summarize, fans of the first “Ice Age” won’t be disappointed by “The Meltdown,” and it also breaks the “sequel’s curse” this film is entertaining on its own right.

Last summer, director Christopher Nolan reinvigorated the BATMAN legend with a character-driven thrill-ride chock full of surprises and endless invention, but the same can’t be said of Bryan Singer’s SUPERMAN RETURNS, which feels like a retread for much of its lethargic and bloated running-time. I can’t say this was a major disappointment since my expectations going in were modest at best, but this thing was sooo shockingly mundane; nothing in this movie stirs up much excitement or comes close to matching the awe and wonder Richard Donner’s film fashioned so exhuberantly.

With few exceptions, the casting is disastrous: Bosworth takes the plucky Lois Lane and imbues her with the sum energy derived from digesting a handful of sleeping pills; Spacey’s Luthor, while more faithful to the source material than previous screen versions, isn’t half as memorable as Gene Hackman’s playful take on the character, and Frank Langella is sooo lackluster a Perry White I’m not even sure he was awake when his scenes were shot. As for Routh, he improved as the film progressed, but he still looks more like Superboy (or, more precisely, RUSHMORE’s Max Fischer) than the Man of Steel. (His adolescent looks and awkward first attempts to mimic Christopher Reeve’s Clark Kent are painful to watch)

The missteps in casting could have been glossed over if the film delivered some truly jaw-dropping scenes of Super-derring-do, but there’s little suspense or excitement to the action set-pieces that seem regurgitated from previous films, and the special-effects — the one area it was reasonable to expect improvement in leaps and bounds — are competent but unambitious and not that big an upgrade from what Donner achieved in 1978. In fact, director Bryan Singer, who did such a fine job with the first two X-MEN films, seems so intent on capturing the style of the Donner classic that he leaves little of his own imprint on SUPERMAN RETURNS. SUPERMAN RETURNS most reminds me of Tim Burton’s “re-imagining” of PLANET OF THE APES; each had heaps of money lavished on them, but both are completely lifeless. And since when did Clark Kent wear glasses as a young boy??

Ultimately, this new SUPERMAN may appeal more to those who didn’t grow up with the Christopher Reeve movies, but at 2 1/2 hours, it may be too slow to become the smash Warner was hoping for; it certainly won’t rule the box-office for 13 consecutive weeks as the 1978 original did. In the end, it’s ironic the filmmakers chose to feature the song “Heart and Soul” when SUPERMAN RETURNS had neither.

Already breaking box-office records with each passing week, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” promises to be the top grossing film of 2006… and possibly of all time without question. Millions of people, eagerly waiting since the premier of the first installment, have generated $400+ million in sales for this movie thus far and the numbers continue to grow. But sales… those are just numbers, at the end of the day, the true question is… How does this “Pirates” stack up to the first?

Although this movie was relatively well done, it pretty much is a two and a half hour teaser for part three, which is a bit disappointing. It really lacks the sarcasm and witty humor that made the first one such a great movie among all ages. The jokes and one liners in “Dead Man’s Chest” fall a bit short of funny, and by the end of the film are just lost in the epic that this movie tries to be. The plot seemed a bit dull (chasing a human squid around the seas, while trying to recover a beating heart in a chest), but it would have been ample if the movie would have just cut out the filler and kept the time around the two hour mark. It was obvious that the audience (in the two times I’ve been to theatres to see it) was growing quite restless and bored.

With that being said though, I should point out that Johnny Depp (Jack Sparrow) does, in fact, make it more than obvious that he carries this movie. His ability to take on a character in full and entice movie-goers all at once is astounding. He creates and refreshes a charcater that adults and children alike will find appealing, funny, and eccentric.

Overall, “Dead Man’s Chest” follows the makings of any sequel… lack of developed plot, quite the teaser, and overdone. But it’s still worth seeing… even if just to have more background for the upcoming Pirates III. Some scenes might be a little much for children, but it is a film that would be great for a family outting.

9 years from now, machines will be intelligent, will have pretty much destroyed civilization, and will be able to shoot lasers out of their, um, eyeholes.   What’s more, they’ll be experimenting with biotechnology, reanimating executed criminals (yet another argument against the death penalty – they’ll be back!) and, ultimately, creating their own fleshy humanoids, modeled on the current governor of California.  (Skynet, is based in San Francisco, after all.)   Somehow this all seemed a lot more believable in 1985.

I am going to start out by noting that Ron Howard is one of the best directors of our modern generation. That is why that I thought, going into the theatre that this film (staring one of the best actors ever). It would have at least a sliver of a chance of being good, maybe not as good as the book but nonetheless still good. Making a film of such a loved as well as heated topic always draws a lot of attention, there are always the people that love, and most of the time … that same number of people that hate.

It was a very smart summer blockbuster that will attract a lot of the general American public. Think about it. Tom Hanks (one of the best actors we have ever had AND it’s based on one of the most read books since well holy the BIBLE and the DICTIONARY. Ron Howard’s adaptation of the Da Vinci Code, in my opinion not only falls sort of the book, but also tacks on a completley new and UN-improved boring ending. I honestly was somewhat enjoying this film right up until the final 30 minutes, it was pointless, uncalled for and just all around sloppy and bad.

Now getting all of those negative statements out of the way, I very much enjoyed the way that they adapted the screenplay (other than the end, obviously), and I loved the acting all around as a whole. That said Tom Hanks, obviously wasn’t exactly the most convincing Robert Langdon but still his natural acting skills made up for it. Ian McKellen’s performance of Sir Leigh Teabing is jut about as good as it could have been and the French actress Audrey Tautou’s performace as Sophie was well done. Even the little performances such as Jean eno’s performance as the police chief was good just as the rest of eno’s performances. Also the cinamotography and camera shots were very well done and were definately pleasing to watch and keep an eye on.

The “Da Vinci Code” has it’s shining moments but fails, overall to really impress not only non-readers of the novel but also the devoted fans, but i’m not too shocked.

“Star Trek” launches the 2009 summer movie season (forget “Wolverine,” at least for now) in much the same way “Iron Man” got last year’s season off to a great start.    It’s bright and fast, fun and fizzy, witty and, really, kind of wonderful.   It reminds us that sometimes we go to the movies just to get a kick out of what we see on the screen.

For this movie to be fun is quite an achievement.   This is a “Star Trek” movie, after all.   And there have been plenty before it, some of them kind of great (like “Wrath of Kahn”) and some of them pretty awful (like “Nemesis”) but none of them ever approaching fun.   Going Where No One Has Gone Before has always been terribly serious business; there are leagues of Trekkies out there, after all, who are checking every detail, cross-referencing every serial number, and making sure it’s all “canon.”  Everything has to measure up.   Everything has to match.   It’s hard, headachy work to make a Star Trek movie, and almost as much work to watch one.   Until now.