Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Sydney Morning Herald Agrees With My Niece

We went to California Kitchen Pizza with some of my family on Sunday night. There, one of my nieces (Ellie) informed us that they had seen Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga'Hoole.  She said she didn't like it, which made us rethink our mild desire to go see it.  Jack's been in the mood to go to the movie theatre, and we were thinking we'd go see that.  Besides being Australian, it didn't look all that exciting to me.  Although once when I saw the trailer, I got all teary-eyed.  That's not such a big deal though. I get teary-eyed when watching Nickelodeon tween sitcoms.   

Upon hearing my niece's review of the movie, I didn't immediately discount us seeing the movie.   Although I share my niece's love of iCarly and Drake and Josh, it's not like we're twins. I might like something she doesn't like.   Right?     

But now I see that the Sydney Morning Herald has also given the movie a negative review.   The reviewer, Jim Schembri say it's ...an ambitious, technically accomplished, clumsily told and emotionally sterile Aussie 3D adventure that looks good but feels numb.  Ouch!  That's cleverly worded criticism though. Schembri says the movie is one of those that has children as their target audience, but is too dark, scary, and boring for most of them.   

It's an allegorical type thing...about Nazis.   And sometimes that works for children.   JK Rowling succeeded. The later Harry Potter books are very dark and allegorical. They're popular with adults and popular with kids.  Why?   JK Rowling is MAGIC.  That's probably the real reason.   It could also be that she hooked the kids with the earlier books.   She made them care about the characters and situations, so they were willing to later take her hand and travel with her to more serious places.  

Schembri says...the film is also hobbled by a grand lack of humour.  Ah!  There were go. Harry Potter is full of humor.

I don't usually like stuff that lacks humor. Then the story becomes melodrama. Real life has humor...even in some of it's darkest moments. 

Of course, not everyone is going to agree with my niece and Schembri. Some people might like it. I MIGHT like it. I doubt we'll see it in the theatre, but I might end up catching it on TV someday. 

I am curious to know if anyone has given it a positive review yet.....

Ah!  I found one.   Lindy West from the UK's Telegraph liked it.  Actually, if I'm reading this right...West is a Seattle writer.   I guess she blogs sometimes for The Telegraph? ?   She says the Aussie owl movie is completely good.   And she disagrees with Schembri on the humor bit.  She says, the owls look like actual owls, only with emotions and jokes.   

I was going to go and compare more reviews, but have decided to take the lazy route.  Actually, Jack came over here and gave me the idea.   He suggested consulting our beloved Lord Wiki. Great idea, but I'm going to visit the Rotten Tomato site instead. They do a consensus of reviews, and then give it a score. Our owl movie got a 52%.  That doesn't seem very impressive. Still. In the end, you never know.  A movie or book can get excellent reviews, and you'll end up hating it. A movie might get horrible reviews, and you could end up loving it.

Movies are expensive though.   If I'm going to do the theatre thing, I usually prefer to see movies that have gotten a lot of very positive reviews.   It seems then there's more of a chance I'll like it.   For the most part, my opinion usually does match the majority. The exception would probably be that blue people movie. It seemed like EVERYONE was seeing that, and recommending it.   Maybe I would like it if I tried it. But I couldn't get myself motivated to try it. It looks really boring to me.