Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Movie Reviews: Courageous Lions Sure Kill Dreams!

More movie reviews!  That’s three consecutive days of movie reviews now and I’m sure you are getting tired of them.  But it’s like a sickness.  I just can’t stop watching movies!  Anyway, I saw The Lion King 3D a few weeks ago but completely forgot about it until now.  I think it’s because it’s not a “new” movie.  But the other three were all within the past week.  In fact, I saw Courageous just yesterday.  Now I can say that I’ve seen every movie currently playing at the theater I work at!  Is that impressive or pathetic?

The Lion King 3D AWESOME!

Who hasn’t seen Disney’s 1994 hit The Lion King?  I’m pretty sure the vast majority probably even owns it on VHS or DVD somewhere.  Yet Disney’s re-release of Simba’s story to the big screen—this time in 3D—was pretty breathtaking to behold!  The 3D was tasteful and really helped me to appreciate the beauty of the animation and the drama of the tale.  Featuring great voice talent (Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Nathan Lane and Whoopi Goldberg to name a few), spectacular songs by Tim Rice and Elton John and a score by Hans Zimmer, this movie is well worth a revisit!

Dream House AVERAGE

Daniel Craig stars as Will Atenton, a man who has left the city and just bought his dream house with his wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and two young daughters.  Everything seems perfect, until they discover their new home was once the crime scene of a brutal murder.  The only one who seems to know anything about it is their neighbor Ann (Naomi Watts).  Things get even weirder as the movie progresses, and the final plot twist was completely underwhelming.  Dream House, written by screenwriter David Loucka and directed by Jim Sheridan, isn’t scary or particularly inventive.  It’s kind of like last year’s Shutter Island, just less good.

Killer Elite AVERAGE

Jason Statham plays Danny, a retired special-ops agent, who is forced to kill again when his mentor Hunter (Robert DeNiro) is taken captive by a sheik.  If Danny can assassinate three individuals responsible for the deaths of the man’s three sons, Hunter will be let free.  Things of course get complicated, especially since the leader of a secret military group (Clive Owen) is hot on Danny’s tracks.  The movie wasn’t fantastic by any means, but there was solid action that kept the movie going, especially one particular sequence where Statham manages to fight two guys off while tied to a chair.  Pretty cool stuff if you turn your brain off for a while.

Courageous ADMIRABLE

Alex Kendrick is the writer, director and leading actor of this Christian film about a group of cops who make a pact to become better fathers after Adam (Kendrick’s character) loses his daughter in a terrible accident.  While at times laying on the cheese in cringe-worthy doses—especially with a storyline involving a Hispanic man and his wife, who incidentally cannot act worth a hill of beans—the message was very spiritual and impactful if not subtle.  Overcoming my cynical inclinations, I found myself enjoying this movie greatly despite its flaws.  The film courageously campaigns for more Christlike parenting in the world today, and that’s something I can get behind.


You can read Brian's review of Dream House at his blog Addiction to Film.

Love movies?  Check out my Movie Page!

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