Bolt

Take Homeward Bound's tale of three pets drawn together on an epic journey across America, mix in Toy Story's winking sense of irony at the faux world of toys, shroud it in the artificially-created world of The Truman Show and you've got Bolt.

Bolt (John Travolta) is a clueless acting dog who truly loves his "person," Penny (Miley Cyrus). In the movies, Bolt is a superhero, but Bolt doesn't quite grasp that he's actually in a movie. When audiences begin to tire of Bolt's heroics, the network decides to throw in a twist and separate Penny from Bolt. Distraught and determined, Bolt escapes the studio in a quest to rescue Penny from Hollywood.

Along the way, he meets a street savvy cat named Mittens (Susie Essman) and a chubby fanboy gerbil named Rhino (Mark Walton). Rhino's a lot like Kung Fu Panda's Po – overweight, hopelessly consumed by fandom, and relentlessly optimistic. Mittens, on the other hand, is the Bones equivalent; a beaten down cynic who thinks Bolt is completely insane.

Bolt is at its best during the film-within-a-film sequences; the motorcycle chase scene is just as thrilling as the one in Terminator Salvation. The catch is that though it's not real, the violence takes place on screen. In other words, does it really matter if CGI actors are pretending to be CGI dead? Helicopters explode, motorcycles flip, and bad guys don't get back up. In that regard, Bolt's pretty violent.

Where Michael J. Fox voice perfectly embodied Chance in Homeward Bound as a young pup, Travolta's throaty whisper seems an odd choice for Bolt, who's at least as clueless as Chance. He does a great job, but occasionally you can hear the weariness and maturity in his voice.

Occasionally, the movie glosses over its own moral arc; although it's critical for Bolt to reunite with his person and Mittens still nurses her own emotional wounds over the loss of her family, Rhino leaves his old lady without nary a look back. It's never mentioned that she might miss him.

But those are minor quibbles. Overall, Bolt's an entertaining, fast-moving action picture. It's just not on par with Toy Story as a parable that younger kids can enjoy.

Beowulf

By now, everyone knows about Beowulf, if only because they were forced to read it in high school. Judging from the audio track of the DVD, some folks clearly resented having to read the "boring" heroic saga of a man who rips a troll's arm off with his bare hands, slays its monstrous mother, becomes king, and later dies fighting a dragon.

There's some odd defensiveness about Beowulf from the directors. This movie isn't JUST going to be about Beowulf, it will have a tightly wrapped story from beginning to end! It won't JUST be about a hero slaying monsters, it will be about father and son guilt, mother and son pride, and the lies they tell each other! There won't JUST be actors, there will be beautifully rendered superbly animated avatars! It won't JUST be a movie, it will be a movie in 3-D!

For the most part, it works. Beowulf and the king who hires him to slay Grendel are at times drunken louts and macho warriors. Grendel isn't just a disgusting monster, he's a piteous troll-child that throws a deadly tantrum. And Grendel's mother? Mmm, Grendel's mother is a delicious golden-skinned incubus who actually sprouts high heels (because, hey, human isn't her real form anyway so why not?) and a slinky tail. Gone is the random moment when Beowulf finds the sword that will slay Grendel's mother just laying around in her treasure horde, a situation I always found a little lazy on the part of the mysterious author. Replacing the somewhat jumbled juxtaposition of heroic mythology and Christian values is a tale of men tempted by lust and greed who go on to father the demons that ultimately destroy them.

The three-dimensional effects are lost on my television, a problem that's going to only become more prevalent as movie theaters give up trying to compete with DVDs and switch to gimmicks like 3-D. This makes some scenes more amusing than exciting, like when a flagpole juts towards the screen at the viewer.

The computer graphics, while breathtaking, seem to be almost beside the point. Yes, it's great that we have Jolie in all her near-naked glory. But why bother recreating her in CGI at all? When you watch the making-of docs, the actors acted with props, right down to Crispin Glover tossing dolls around as Grendel. Was that really necessary? Do we really care how realistically a warrior swings a lamp (a weighted prop, in case you're wondering) or Grendel tears a man in two?

Perhaps the most grating attribute of the DVD is the insistence that Beowulf was "boring." That somehow, the producers have made Beowulf better, because reading is dumb and so is high school. Maybe it's the English major in me, but I found the tone condescending.

If you can look past that, Beowulf's an entertaining if somewhat gory tale. But with its gratuitous nudity, buckets of gore, and significant changes to the plot, it's not going to be shown in high school English classes any time soon.

Monsters vs. Aliens

Monsters vs. Aliens is an entertaining wrestling match for young children, an ironic take on society for older adults, and a delicious homage to 1950s science fiction movies for geeky parents.

Monsters vs. Aliens is one of those movies that's pretty explicit about what you get: a fight involving two critters that sometimes blur together. The thing is, while an alien could be classified as a monster, a monster can't always be classified as an alien. Although these monsters are, well, monsters, they're OUR MONSTERS, good old American-bred monstrosities created from science and evolution gone awry: Insectosaurus (Mothra), Dr. Cockroach (a riff on The Fly voiced by Hugh Laurie), BOB (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes + The Blob voiced by Seth Rogen), The Missing Link (The Creature from the Black Lagoon voiced by Will Arnett), and of course Ginormica (Attack of the 50-foot Woman voiced by Reese Witherspoon). The origins of these science fiction creations were completely lost on the audience in the theater I went to.

The story revolves around Susan Murphy's transformation into Ginormica on her wedding day. It's a thrilling tale of female empowerment – literally, as Susan transforms into an enormously powerful giantess – that seems more appropriate to a 1950s setting. After her transformation Ginormica becomes a pawn of the government, working for a secret agency dedicated to defeating supernatural threats. In other words: Hellboy and the BPRD. When a giant robot (sent by aliens, natch) shows up to destroy the Earth, it's up to this completely untrained and clueless team of monsters to save the world.

The movie is rife with in-jokes about classic science fiction movies, the current state of the U.S. government, and the complexities of global conquest that movies tend to gloss over (how does an alien overlord tell his clones apart?). The action comes fast and furious and in three-dimensions, the violence is definitely not for kids, and at various points things blow up. Although this is something of an action comedy, Monsters vs. Aliens plays for keeps.

The characters' lip-synching seemed off, but that might have been the theater I was in. Some of the characters were underdeveloped: BOB is a laugh-machine, but Link and Cockroach have little to do, especially in light of Ginormica's powers. And everyone conveniently ignores the fact that there's a bigger-than-even-Ginormica Insectosaurus wandering the countryside…but to go down that path is to question the basic premise of the movie.

Monsters vs. Aliens is a real treat for monster movie fans. For everyone else, it's a serviceable 3-D roller coaster ride. The kids in the audience (and it was almost all kids and parents) weren't bored, but they weren't laughing as much as my wife and I.

Wall-E

What can I say about Wall-E that hasn't already been said? We already know about the lack of dialogue, the amazing visual effects, and the political commentary of a sedentary life of ecological neglect. I watched it with my wife and my 18-month old toddler.

I loved the movie. Loved it. Loved the old-school shout outs to computer users everywhere, from the Mac boot-up sound of WALL-E to the iPod-esque design of EVE. Loved the wry comments on the future of civilization: roaches and Twinkies! Loved the very notion that it's possible to get too caught up in one's climb up the career ladder (EVE) or stuck in a rut (WALL-E), and that there are more important things like life and love. It's a worthy successor to The Incredibles and makes me forgive Pixar for Ratatouille.

My wife questioned why there were babies on the spaceship Axiom: If everyone is just staring into screens all the time, when do they ever have time to procreate? When two humans finally do look away from their screens, they seem genuinely surprised by their attraction to each other. Which implies they haven't been doing much interaction at all, begging the question: where do the babies come from? Yes, these are the conversations we have in our household.

My theory was that the babies were actually cloned. Keeping the babies fat and happy was a sort of Machiavellian torture by the robots, who needed servants to continue to function and keep the status quo. If you consider the long-reaching plans of robots that have been doing this for hundreds of years, Wall-E takes on a considerably sinister tone.

Or, ya know, maybe it's a cartoon and we shouldn't worry about it.

My toddler seemed to get bored about halfway through. Even the cool special effects could only retain his attention span for so long.

It wasn't until the next day, when we were at Home Depot, that we knew he was really paying attention. There was a washer/dryer combo displayed side-by-side on a sign. The doors to the appliances looked suspiciously the two eyes of WALL-E.

My son pointed and said a new word, "roh-BOT!"

So I'll put him down as enjoying the movie too.

Futurama: Bender's Game

I'm the target audience for Bender's Game. A lifelong gamer of over two decades (yeeck, I'm getting old), I also know and love the book by Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game. With the title alone, the Futurama writing staff is clearly letting me know this is the movie for me.

Bender's Game starts promising, with jokes about the rising cost of fuel prices. There's also a sly joke about Leela's anger issues, which are controlled by a shock collar. A shock collar Leela starts to find ... titillating. Just when things get interesting and this plot point could turn into something awkward and funny, it's dropped.

Bender discovers that he has no imagination and, aggravated that he can't participate in a game of Dungeons & Dragons, flips out Mazes & Monsters-style, renaming himself Titanius and wandering the sewers. He then gets sent to the HAL institute, Arkham Asylum for robots. This plot point is pursued to a point and then dropped.

Meanwhile, Mom (that's her name) has been controlling dark matter prices for years, but there is a means of invalidating her stranglehold on fuel prices. Professor Farnsworth accidentally invented "anti-backwards matter" which, should it ever encounter dark matter, would render dark matter useless. It just so happens that this anti-backwards matter is a 12-sided die. Hilarious, right?

As our lovable misfits build towards a confrontation with Mom and her Killbot goons, reality shifts and suddenly everyone's in a parallel fantasy dimension. And then we get, in descending order of comedic value: D&D jokes, Greek myth jokes, Lord of the Rings jokes, Star Wars jokes, Call of Cthulhu jokes, and did I mention the Lord of the Rings jokes?

There's actually more interesting material on the extras, covering all the allusions to D&D that have appeared in Futurama and confirming that the guys who write the show are hopeless geeks themselves. Unfortunately, they're not really boosting their own geek cred with this movie.

Look, I love Futurama and I love D&D. But this movie is all over the place, using tired, easy jokes for fantasy. I always identified Futurama as a series of in-jokes for sci-fi and tech geeks, which is a much broader category than fantasy gamers. The bizarre diversion into the fantasy realm isn't well thought out, isn't particularly funny, and not all that interesting.

Sorry guys. This is one D&D adventure that doesn't give out nearly as much XP as it should.

Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs

I was already unhappy with the first Futurama movie, so I didn't have much hope for the second. I was surprised to see that this installment of Futurama is actually two awkward subplots mashed together: Lovecraftian horror for the first half, and a meditation on religion on the second half.

On the Lovecraftian side, throw in tentacle attacks, slimy ancient gods from beyond time and space, and the nihilistic view that Heaven is a fabrication and you've got a pretty depressing, semi-creepy, not really all that funny first half. Bender finally makes good on his threat to destroy all humans, Fry conveniently forgets his entire relationship with Leela, the Robot Devil shows up for a one-note gag ... I could go on but I'll stop there.

Judging by the reviews so far, the second half went over a lot of peoples' heads. Yivo is a parody of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is itself a parody of religion. Basically, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a mental construct posed to challenge the notion of a divine being; if you can disprove that the Spaghetti Monster was responsible you win the argument. "Win" being a pretty subjective word, as anyone knows who has argued about religion or politics.

As one big joke about relationships and religion, Beast With a Billion Backs works pretty well. But for reasons known only to the writers, the plot shambles forward well beyond the Big Revelation by Leela about Yivo, the aforementioned Spaghetti Monster. It's like the drunk guy at a party who tells a joke, discovers no one thinks it's funny, then tells it in a slightly different way that STILL doesn't make it funny. We get it: relationships with people can be just as ridiculous as relationships with God. But this is Futurama, and while I appreciate the depth of meaning the show strives for with this movie, it feels forced. A multitude of guest appearances doesn't make up for it.

Still, I can't be too harsh on Futurama. You won't find many animated shows that are willing to take on topics like relationships and religion at the same time, so Futurama gets points for trying. I just wish it didn't try so hard.

Futurama - Bender's Big Score

When Futurama first came out, I was convinced it would never last. Unlike the Simpsons, Futurama makes you feel a bit like a moron when you watch it, with perpetual in-jokes to science fiction and fact that you may only catch years later. To my delight, Futurama had a very successful run.

One of the last episodes involved the Robot Devil, a favorite character of mine, and the burgeoning romantic subplot between Fry and Leela. Fry, having traded his hands in for the Robot Devil's hands so that he could play the hypnoflute ultimately has to give the hands back and the episode ends with a sweet but sad little tune imagining Fry and Leela together. Filled with clever banter, excellent music and choreography, plot twists, and a bittersweet ending, this was Futurama at its finest.

Bender's Big Score is not Futurama at its finest. All of those plots have been discarded.

Mind you, it's not bad. It's just not fantastic. Bender's Big Score is a series of muddled plot points, pointless cameos, and a lot of "hey, look, we gave you what you wanted!" fan service. It's great to have a DVD comeback of a great show, but I expected better from a feature-length movie. I mean, Internet scams? That's so ten years ago!

That said, I'm a huge fan of Hypnotoad. Twenty minutes of Hypnotoad. TWENTY. MINUTES. That's right, twenty glorious minutes of HYPNOTOAD. ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!

So for that, it gets an extra star. But only because Hypnotoad compels me.

Kung Fu Panda

I was on a long flight back from California when I had the choice between watching Kung Fu Panda on a tiny television screen four feet away from me, or read the SkyMall catalog. I wisely chose to watch Kung Fu Panda.

I was curious as to how Kung Fu Panda would present itself: as a Lion King-style retelling of ancient Chinese myth, or as a love note to kung fu films from an American perspective. I'm pleased to report that it's the latter.

You know the story: Po (a restrained Jack Black) adores the Furious Five but is too fat and slow to ever hope to become one of them and then fate does precisely that. It's the heroes who have the real problem (each representing a different kung fu style and all voiced by a roster of celebrities, including Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, and Lucy Liu). Struggling most of all is Master Shifu - a bit redundant, if you know the definition of Shifu - played by Dustin Hoffman (wouldja believe?) who is still suffering from the betrayal of his first and best pupil Tai Lung (Ian McShane).

What's surprising about Kung Fu Panda is how adult the story is. The word "kill" is mentioned several times. Tai Lung and Shifu have a physical conflict that is much a battle of philosophies as it is a father and son having an argument. And the plot is beautiful in its symmetry, perfectly tying in every element: from the modified style of kung-food training that Shifu teaches Po to the revelation of Po's (we can only assume adopted) duck-father's secret recipe to the fact that Po is immune to acupuncture (because he's so fat, of course) Kung Fu Panda is tightly scripted and wrapped up in a beautiful package.

The movie itself (what I could see on the tiny airplane screen) is beautifully produced. It ranges from Chinese-style art to realistic but soft-colored tones, to bursts of color amidst pitch darkness. The fight scenes are all in exciting locations: in a prison, on a rope bridge, in an ancient temple. It's like a videogame, only you're watching the fat guy character nobody wants to play. It was beautiful enough that I had a pang of regret that I wasn't watching it on a big screen. Or even a medium screen.

For kids, Po is a great tale about overcoming obstacles by being yourself. For geeks, Po is a hilarious new hero archetype: the fanboy as hero, a fat, slobbering devotee who knows more details about the Furious Five than they know about themselves.

The Simpsons Movie

There's a predictable path to pop culture icons that start on television. The Simpsons went from animated shorts on the Tracy Ulllman show to their own series and finally, to this movie. All that's missing is the live-action version and the Broadway play.

With a PG-13 rating, there's an opportunity for the Simpsons to stretch their legs a bit and do naughty things they couldn't do on television, like nudity, language, violence - you know, all the fun stuff. But there's got to be more than that.

The Simpsons is a richly detailed universe with characters that actually evolve, from the passing of Flanders' wife to Apu's massive brood. These characters are what make the Simpsons so much fun; there are stereotypes that are a reflection of every aspect of American life. They're us. Fatter, dumber, louder, uglier...but they're us.

What does the Simpsons movie do? It drops a dome over the city of Springfield and then separates the Simpsons from the rest of the cast. The rest of the film then involves a villain never-before introduced, a random helpful character (a busty Eskimo lady), and a love-interest for Lisa that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot.

The plot involves the EPA and pollution. Which is odd, since Lisa, arguably the biggest opponent of pollution on the show, doesn't have much to say or do here. In fact, she's occupied with her love interest. Bart's supposedly having a crisis over Homer being a bad father (unbelievable, given that Homer's behavior borders the insane). And Marge reconsiders her marriage. For the eighth time.

For some reason, someone thought the idea of Homer becoming obsessed with a pig was funny. This in turn morphs into Homer turning the pig into "Spider-Pig." And that one-off joke, which at most gets a mild chuckle, turns into the tent pole supporting the Simpsons. It's in Homer's dream quest. It's in the DVD menu. I mean, seriously, the idea of Spider-Pig is cute the first time. But it's hardly movie material. In fact, after starting the chain of events that are the crux of the Simpsons movie, the stupid pig disappears entirely. Even the writers knew the pig was a dumb idea.

It's not that the Simpsons movie isn't funny. It's that it's extremely uninspired, given the fine pedigree of writers for the show. The mutant squirrel that becomes the symbol of Springfield's pollution best sums up the lack of inspiration. There already is a mascot of Springfield's solution: the three-eyed fish. The fact that the movie didn't use it shows just how underutilized the Springfield cast really is.

Ratatouille

I love just about everything Pixar puts out. What's so refreshing about their approach is the male-centric perspective the movies bring, be it a single father searching for his son (Finding Nemo), a single male learning the responsibility of raising a child (Monsters, Inc.), or male bonding between friends (Toy Story). And then there's Ratatouille.

Our rat hero, Remy (Patton Oswalt), is a rat who wants to be a chef. Our human hero, Linguini (Lou Romano), is a garbage boy for the fine French restaurant Gusteau's with a mysterious past who just wants to get the girl (Colette, voiced by Jeanine Garofalo). These two eventually cross paths and struggle with the boundaries that separate man from rodent, the untalented from the prodigy. Remy strikes out on his own and gets a job (of sorts), distancing himself from his family and friends. Linguini struggles to impress Colette in the kitchen under the devious watch of Skinner (Ian Holm). Throughout we hear the mantra: "Anyone can cook!" as espoused by the ghostly "figment of Remy's imagination," August Gusteau (Brad Garrett).

Unlike the other Pixar movies that are tightly focused on a single core message and convey it beautifully, Ratatouille is all over the place. Will Remy convince his family that striking out on his own was a good idea? Will he make it as a rat turned chef? Can he keep up his façade as a puppet master of Linguini's cooking talent? Speaking of Linguini, what is his mysterious background all about? Will Linguini convince Colette of his love? Will Skinner figure out Linguini has no talent for cooking? And what IS Linguini's talent anyway? Will Skinner get away with his plans to sully the reputation of Gusteau's restaurant through blatant commercialization?

But that's not what Ratatouille is all about. It's actually about the crypt-like critic known as Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O'Toole with creaky menace). He is a bitter, unlikable skeleton of a man, thin where Gusteau was fat. Ego doesn't like food; he claims that he loves it, and if he doesn't love it, "I don't SWALLOW." Somewhere in the course of Ego's career as a food critic, he lost track of what makes life enjoyable. It's up to our dynamic duo to convince him otherwise.

So the message isn't actually about whether or not anyone can cook. It's about remembering what matters about food: not the taste so much as the feelings and memories associated with it. Unfortunately, that message is muddled by all the other questions laid out in the film.

As a result of all the other plotlines, some of the characters become one-dimensional. The rats are more fleshed out than the humans. In fact, Linguini seems like such a doofus with no actual skill that it's hard to care about his plight or what Colette sees in him. It's implied that his true calling is as a roller-skating waiter, but that talent appears in the last few minutes of the film.

Ratatouille wraps up with Ego's epiphany, another human who isn't fleshed out nearly as much as his counterparts. The fairytale ending is a bit hard to swallow, but that probably depends on your opinion of rats in a kitchen. Overall, Ratatouille has a lot of heart but not a lot of art, and the film's lack of focus prevents it from becoming a true Pixar classic.

Superman: Doomsday

I wasn't paying much attention when Superman died. It passed without fanfare in my geekiverse because I knew that Superman would come back, the same way I keep expecting Captain America to pop up any day now.

Amazon Unbox downloaded this movie to my Tivo right after it taped the introduction of Superman to The Batman cartoon series, the current anime-inspired version of Batman. And to my surprise, all of the voice actors from the Justice League cartoon series were back in the Batman cartoon: George Newbern as the serious Superman, Dana Delaney as the sarcastic Lois Lane, and Clancy Brown as the debonair and devious Lex Luthor. With both on my Tivo, it was easy to make a comparison between the two animated depictions of Superman.

Warning: This review contains spoilers. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

The character designs have been altered a bit from the Superman animated series. Superman (voiced by Adam Baldwin) has bizarrely drawn cheekbones in this movie. Everyone else more or less looks the same, although Lex Luthor (voiced by James Marsters) is a "white guy" again; the Superman cartoon cast him as a Kojak-like darker skinned man who became progressively lighter skinned in each incarnation. Lois (voiced by Anne Heche, of all people) still looks like Lois, wearing impossibly short skirts and yet achieving an amazing range of athletic moves. Three cheers for animated physics!

Superman: Doomsday really enjoys its PG-13-ness. People say funny cuss words like "freaking," have relations, and die -- bloodlessly, but they still die. This is an animation for grown-ups, folks!

The voice actors do a suitable job. Heche is actually the best of the bunch, providing a full range of emotions to Lois. Adam Wylie is great as Jimmy Olsen, but I don't give him quite as much props as he's not exactly new to the DC animation universe (he's the voice of Brainiac 5 in Legion of Super-Heroes). The most egregious loss is Brown as Lex Luthor. Clancy Brown's gravelly baritone has always given the character a subtle menace. In Superman: Doomsday, Lex is just a bald guy with an attitude.

And thus we have the first of several problems with this movie. Lex is a one-dimensional villain bent on destroying Superman. You know you're in trouble when you can make "he's so evil..." jokes. For example:

• Lex is so evil, he has the cure for cancer but doesn't share it with the world!
• He's so evil, he has a special room created just for beating up Superman!
• He's so evil, he shoots his own henchmen to cover up his operations!

Lex practically cackles his way through the entire series and is so patently unlikable that he hardly seems like an actual foil for Superman. In fact, the only noteworthy contribution Lex contributes is his gripe that Superman was killed by an "intergalactic soccer hooligan!" I have to agree with him.

After a long, protracted fight with a goofy-looking muscle-bound gargoyle named Doomsday, Superman dies.

What made the death of Superman so important was the way the writers dealt with his death. Superman is as much a divine being and an iconic symbol as he is an alien who protects Earth; his death had emotional repercussions on the level of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, and the comics made a point of showing what a world without Superman was like. His death helped create Steel and Superboy and other heroes I didn't keep track of because I wasn't reading the comics at the time.

You won't find any of that here. We have a few minutes of mourning, a few minutes of revelations (Lois knew Superman's identity, Lois meets Martha Kent, Lois and Superman were getting it on), and then Superman returns. Only he's mean.

And so, Superman: Doomsday isn't just about Superman dying at the hands of a super villain - it's about Superman being the not-so-noble guy we always knew he could be. This new, resurrected version acts with brutal efficiency. That's most epitomized by his murder of the Toyman after Superman 2.0 discovers that Toyman escape from prison and killed a little girl in a hostage crisis.

There's a reckoning, of course: two Supermen battling it out, comparable to the Doomsday fight only with more blood and clever asides. And like the end of the movie, punch for punch, the old Superman (Animated Series) beats the new Superman (Doomsday), hands down.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters

If you're a fan of Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF), you have very low expectations of the show. ATHF involves three symbols of fast food: the insane Master Shake (Dana Snyder), the lovably moronic Meatwad (Dave Willis), and the super-intelligent Frylock (Carey Means). They are exactly what they sound like: walking (sometimes floating), talking shakes, piles of meat, and boxes of fries. This is not an ironic fact lost on the producers; at various times, other people who encounter the Hunger Force (like Carl, the shut-in voiced by Dennis Franz) comment on the strangeness of these bizarre alien beings who happen to act like teenagers.

There are other beings who happen to harass our protagonists, including spiky aliens, aliens that look like they came from an Atari 2600 video game, and aliens that might be time traveling robot turkeys. But that's largely irrelevant, because ATHF isn't so much a universe as it is performance art, with the topic of the night playing out to its inevitable conclusion. In the vein of much British humor, plotlines and continuity are irrelevant. Characters argue with each other, fight with each other, and even kill each other. Sometimes, Frylock gets tired of his idiot roommates and just leaves. Sometimes, Master Shake's insanely far-fetched plans destroy the world. And sometimes, Meatwad kills Master Shake.

ATHF, unburdened by any real anchors to reality, is thus free to explore whatever, whenever, and wherever, the plot meandering to some illogical conclusion, often played for laughs but sometimes just to torture a particular character to death. 15 minutes of this is hilarious, and it's pretty obvious that ATHF is meant to be watched by college kids with short attention spans. And adults like me who have 15 minutes before going to work.

So why make a movie? Or to be more precise, why make a movie titled Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters?

The dodge is that it reveals the origins of the ATHF, but that's silly. For one, ATHF's comedic value is precisely in the complete and utter lack of explanation as to why fast food is living in New Jersey. For another, ATHF is about conflict between various characters for no good reason other than to dance for our entertainment. And that's precisely what the movie does, although it wears a little thin after the prerequisite 15 minutes normally allocated to the television show.

Explaining the plot of the movie is pointless, because it's not meant to be explained. It involves a talking watermelon, a mad scientist, Bruce Campbell voicing a chicken McNugget (of course), Space Ghost, the reincarnated soul of MC Pee Pants, the CIA, jazzercising giant robots that poop little jazzercising robots, and Abraham Lincoln's time travel shenanigans. Aren't you sorry you asked?

Your perception of all this is really dependent on your perception of the show. It won't turn you into a fan. In fact, the entire intro is a joke on those "let's go out to the movies" dancing food characters, with various angry incarnations of movie junk food screaming to thrash metal, "You came here. Watch it. Don't like it? Walk out."

I didn't walk out. If you're a fan of ATHF, you won't either.

Shrek the Third

Shrek, like Harry Potter, is one of those entertainment vehicles that transcended the gap between target marketing groups. Harry Potter is appealing to both kids and adults, making it a huge hit. It's a difficult balancing act that is threatened by its own popularity...it's very possible for a name or product to be a victim of its own success, thereby turning off future readers/viewers.

Shrek's hit that point with Shrek the Third.

For kids, Shrek was fun to watch. The characters are either cuddly or blubbery, but never really mean (even the dragon's kind of cute). Shrek himself, supposedly a horrible ogre, looks like a green pile of Playdoh. He's not all that threatening, and he's not supposed to be. And since Shrek is gross, he's got a certain prepubescent boy appeal.

For adults, Shrek was packed with twists on old fairytales, winking nods to familiar voice actors in unfamiliar roles (I'm apparently the only one who got some of the Eddie Murphy jokes in the second Shrek film), and plenty of riffs on movies. Keeping a film amusing for the little ones without aggravating adults, or amusing for the adults without boring the kids, is high art. The path is littered with the corpses of movies who couldn't balance it well (see Chicken Little).

By the time we reach Shrek the Third, the producers had to figure out which he wanted to do: make a movie that's filled with more riffs on fairytales, or actually treat Shrek as a real personality who grows and develops. Shrek 2 managed this amazing feat by shifting locales: Shrek went to the equivalent of Hollywood, fertile ground for humorous allegories and wisecracks. He was also getting to know his in-laws, and certainly all the adults in the audience could appreciate the hilarity that inevitably ensued as two very different groups of people tired to get along.

So Shrek the Third tackles next logical step of having a baby.

The lovable cast of ridiculous misfit fairytale characters is barely in evidence. Taking up the task of mocking fairytale tropes are fairytale villains. Sort of. We've got the Evil Queen from Snow White, Hook from Peter Pan, some dwarves, the Headless Horseman, and a lot of evil trees. I don't know about you, but I don't think of evil trees when I think of fairytale villains. And oh yeah, for some reason one of the bad guys is a cyclops. Can't forget the cyclopes. They couldn't come up with more recognizable fairytale villains? THIS is the most hilarious it gets?

In the middle of this villainous rebellion, led by Prince Charming, Shrek goes off on a quest to find an heir to the king. The heir's a punk named Arthur (as in, King). Only he lives in a fairytale version of high school. Which would be really funny, if Shrek actually stayed there. High school jokes were a potential for comedy goldmine, like the Hollywood jokes. But alas, it's not to be. Shrek leaves, with Donkey and Puss in tow.

Speaking of which, Donkey is now utterly extraneous. Puss is hilarious and entertaining, Donkey is barely relevant. With so many characters, it's getting crowded in the Shrekiverse. And me being a cat owner has nothing to do with my bias towards Puss, I'm sure.

The movie wraps up with a Grrl Power counterattack, and finally we see the Shrek we came to see. Watching all the fairy princesses gather together to use their unique powers to finally save themselves is great. The Snow White scene made the audience laugh. But the rest of the princesses are barely used, and we're once again back to Adultsville.

In the end, we get a nice little sermon about everyone getting along, about how we shouldn't marginalize people by making them out to be villains, and about Shrek accepting that he's finally going to be a dad. Ironically, my wife is six months pregnant, so this movie was a lot more relevant to me than I expected. Worries about being a good father? Check. Concerned that the kids will be too much to handle? Check. Not sure how domestic life will become part of your own manly personality? Check. Man, Shrek really was hilarious...I was laughing out loud at several parts!

Then I noticed I was the only one.

You see, there weren't that many dads in the audience. It was stuffed to the rafters with mothers and their children though. And those kids were squirming through much of the movie, because...because dad jokes are funny to dads and dads-to-be.

The movie ends with Shrek asking Fiona. "The kids are in bed...what do you want to do now?" That's a decidedly adult joke, but don't worry...they end up falling asleep instead.

Yep. Shrek seems a bit tired.

Chicken Little

On my recent trip to my in-laws for Christmas, I got the opportunity to see quite a few movies with my nieces and nephews. Chicken Little was on the DVD player, so I had the opportunity to watch it.

Chicken Little is Disney's first fully rendered computer graphics animation, throwing in its hat to compete with the Pixar folks (who once worked with Disney, but no longer). Now that these kinds of movies have become ubiquitous--see any movies about talking fuzzy animals lately?--there's actually a standard to compare these films. Unfortunately for the competition, Pixar has set the bar very high.

We all know the story: the eponymous Chicken Little (Zach Braff, he of Scrubs fame) is outside playing when a piece of the sky hits him on the head. Freaking out in grand fashion, Chicken Little proceeds to tell everyone that the sky is falling. Only it isn't, and Little kind of looks like a fool, because he overreacted. It wasn't actually a piece of the sky falling, you see. And thus we have a simple fairy tale similar to the boy crying wolf: Don't overreact to potentially bad news, or people won't believe you when there IS bad news.

That's the first five minutes of Chicken Little.

Moving forward in time, we see that Chicken Little has it rough. His mom is nowhere to be found, and his exasperated dad, Buck Cluck (Garry Marshall), tries to keep up with his son's eccentricities. A huge geek, Chicken Little suffers a host of indignities that life throws at him (nearly getting run over, getting pummeled in dodgeball, losing his pants, the list goes on and on) but Little overcomes them with cheerful ingenuity. Facing the thousand cuts of school along with Little are his friends Abby Mallard AKA the Ugly Duckling (Joan Cusak), the very fat pig known as Runt of the Litter (Steve Zahn), and the weird Fish Out of Water (Dan Molina). Their arch nemesis is Foxy Loxy (Amy Sedaris).

All Chicken Little really wants to do is make his dad proud. So he joins a baseball team and, like a typical feel-good coming-of-age sports parable, makes the winning play and earns the love of friends, family, and the community. It's like a film within a film.

Then the sky falls again. Finally, Chicken Little switches to the actual plot: a War of the Worlds-style invasion by aliens. Of course.

So what exactly is wrong with an underdog character overcoming an alien invasion, the prejudices of the community, poor past judgment, and did I mention an alien invasion?

TOO ADULT. Whereas the Pixar films speak to both adults and kids, Chicken Little talks down to kids and throws in stupid slapstick that feels pointless, just to keep the little ones entertained. Then it adds in awkward adult scenes in parts where it doesn't make sense. Do we really need a romance (and a kiss!) between Abby and Little? Or Runt singing, "If You Wanna Be My Lover"? Worse, many of the in-jokes are very dated.

TOO UGLY. Pixar characters are undeniably cute, be it a fish, a car, an ant, or a toy. Chicken Little is an ugly little toad; his feathers look like spines, his eyes are beady, and he has a tiny beak for his massive head. Runt is grossly overweight, Abby is literally an ugly duckling, Fish Out of Water is completely nuts...these are not characters you readily connect with. Braff's voice acting goes a long way in making Little a likable character, but it takes awhile.

TOO SCI-FI. I actually liked this movie a lot, once I realized it was a riff on War of the Worlds. How often do CGI cartoon characters run screaming from aliens? Okay, they did it in Jimmy Neutron too. The problem is that Chicken Little switches abruptly from a cute morality play to terrifying invasion scenario that involves characters getting zapped out of existence. They all turn out to be okay later, of course, but it sure as heck looks like the aliens killed the cute characters.

That said, my niece and nephews watched it twice. All three of them (my twelve-year-old nephew, seven-year-old niece, and my three-year-old godson) loved it. So perhaps where Chicken Little fails in its pseudo-appeal to adults, it succeeds with the kids. Or maybe they just like to see a fat pig run from alien tripods.

The Incredibles

In the vein of Mystery Men and Unbreakable, the Incredibles is about modern sensibilities applied to standard superhero tropes. In this case, it's the golden age of superheroes in the 1950s. The timing is critical, because the government informally backs the superheroes and attitudes shifted in the 60s to skepticism and outright distrust of Big Brother. Several things happen at once as the plot is set up: Mr. Incredible (voice with kindness and strength by Craig T. Nelson) repeatedly rebuffs the preteen president of his fan club (Buddy Pine, voiced to perfection by Jason Lee), makes a date with his wife-to-be (Elastigirl, voiced by Holly Hunter's soft Midwestern purr), and saves a man who was trying to commit suicide.

All in a day's work, right?

Well, times change on the superheroes, but they don't change with them. The person he saved sues Mr. Incredible. The insanity of a man trying to commit suicide by plunging to his death and then suing a person who saved him from himself is an apt parallel for the madness of frivolous lawsuits. Soon, every superhero is being sued and the general populace doesn't WANT to be saved anymore.

So the government packs them all off to relocation programs, and suddenly the superhero personas are inversed. Their daily personalities are the masks they wear at work, while their superhero personalities are unspoken, dark secrets.

Fast forward to years later (late 60s maybe?). Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl now have three children: Violet (Sarah Vowell), a teen with the power of invisibility and force fields, Dash (Spencer Fox), a precocious preteen who can run at lightning speed, and the baby Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile) who...doesn't have any powers.

The family exhibits all the behavior of a normal American family - or at least, the normal family we wish we all had. Mr. Incredible, as Bob Parr, is frustrated by his insurance job and the inability to actually help people. As a superhero he seemed larger than life; as a working slob, he literally bursts from his tiny cube and can barely fit in his stuttering car. And of course, he has an irritating speck of a boss named Gilbert Huph (a character Wallace Shawn voices to irritating perfection) who harasses Bob at every turn for helping customers, not shareholders.

Bob's wife, Helen Parr/Elastigirl, has a different set of problems. She struggles to help her incredible children blend in a mediocre world. Dash acts out because he can't join any sports. Violet struggles to be noticed but hides in plain sight behind her hair. And of course, the two of them fight like crazy.

And thus Pixar has perfectly captured the American family tropes. How many parents have boys who they just wish would tire out? How many teenage girls wish they were invisible? What mother hasn't felt stretched in all directions? And every cubicle dweller (guilty as charged!) finds a Matrix-like connection with Bob, trapped by the most diabolical villain of all: real life.

Bob hangs out with his buddy, the very cool Lucius Best, AKA Frozone (Samuel Jackson) in a role as an African-American hero who has also been retired. The contrast between this role and Jackson as villain in Untouchables should amuse fans of both films. In the evenings, these two guys lie to their wives and go fight crime. It's the only thing that makes them feel alive.

Eventually, Bob's flirt with the dangerous life comes to a climax when he's finally had enough of his job. He takes on freelance work and finds a new zest for life. He loses weight, he starts wearing suits to work, he buys a new car, and he keeps Ms. Parr very happy. In other words, Bob acts like he's having an affair.

And in some sense he is. Mr. Incredible is doing what makes him feel young again. That there does happen to be a beautiful woman (Mirage, voiced by Elizabeth Pena) who lures him into that lifestyle only makes the indiscretion all the more riveting. When Bob disappears on one of his missions, it's up to the family to rescue him.

Throughout, there are a variety of threads that tweak the superhero genre. Edna Mode, voiced by Brad Bird, is the Dr. Ruth of superhero fashion designers. She repeatedly demonstrates the liabilities of wearing a cloak and opines about the challenges of crafting a superhero's costume. Superheroes are disappearing, literally, for reasons that become apparent later. And the government gets tired of keeping their heroes quiet. Indeed, there's a hint of Vietnam in the ambivalent relationship between the former superheroes and their keepers.

What's amazing about this film is the depth of the characters. By now it's expected that each animated personality will perfectly embody the mannerisms of the actors who play them. Syndrome is a masterful interpretation of the actor who voices him, with every mannerism and sideways glance. Only James Woods' Hades in Disney's Hercules comes close. Elastigirl manages to come across as strong, vulnerable, protective, fiery, and even playfully kittenish - Hunter has her down pat. Elastigirl, a stay at home mom mind you, has made such an impression that there are several threads discussing her on the Internet. No seriously, go check and you'll see what I mean.

Equally as important is the relationship between the characters. Elastigirl inadvertently flies her children into danger and then desperately struggles to keep them alive and calm. Violet worries about being grown up enough while Dash freaks out over - and then just as quickly embraces - fighting bad guys who want to kill them. Mr. Incredible's mettle is repeatedly tested and by overcoming each challenge we understand that he is a genuinely good, if frustrated, father and husband.

All throughout, the movie never stops taking itself seriously. Elastigirl tells her children to use their powers to save themselves and that the bad guys WILL kill them. Bad guys do not conveniently hop out of their aircraft, but rather go up in flames. That's right, they die. And there is a lot of tension (the good kind) between Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl, early in their relationship and even years later. They love each other, like each other, and sometimes piss each other off, just like a married couple.

The part that made me laugh out loud the most involved Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl, arguing over directions as they drive a battered RV through city streets on the way to battle a super menace. The kids whine "are we there yet?" Elastigirl shouts, "take the exit!" Mr. Incredible shouts that he thinks he knows a faster way. And for a brief second, despite the fact that the entire family is wearing bright red costumes and possesses superpowers, we understand that this is YOUR family, shouting, arguing, and loving each other.

With the advent of The Incredibles, it has become apparent that the last haven of quality filmmaking is to be found not in cable television, but in animation. Pixar consistently creates compelling stories that teach as well as entertain. Whether it's the joys and fears of fatherhood ("Finding Nemo"), the fear of children outgrowing their parents ("Toy Story"), or the pressures of being a creative person in a regimented world ("A Bug's Life"), Pixar has consistently demonstrated that they understand our greatest hopes and our worst fears. The Incredibles is Pixar at the top of their game and should not be missed by anyone who loves superheroes...or has a family.

Shrek 2

If you've seen Shrek 2, you've probably seen Shrek. In summation, Shrek (Mike Myers) is an ogre. A prince who has a distinct taste for the mundane and is uh, "vertically challenged," drives all the fairy tale beings from his kingdom right into Shrek's swamp. This course of events puts Shrek and donkey (a talking ass, played by Eddie Murphy) into a series of events that ultimately lead to Shrek rescuing Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) from a tower and ultimately marrying her. Princess Fiona switches forms between a comely human female and an ogress at night, until she experiences "true love's first kiss." In a twist on the traditional fairy tale, the kiss from Shrek transforms the princess into her ogress form. The End.

Enter Shrek 2, picking up right where Shrek left off. Fiona was originally a human, so it's time for her human parents to meet both Fiona in her now permanent ogress form and Shrek who...well, who is always an ogre.

What happens next is the usual comedic plot of the new beau as a fish-out-of-water. The King (John Cleese) and Shrek don't get along. Complicating matters is the fact that Fiona was supposed to marry Prince Charming (Rupert Everett), the progeny of the Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders).

Distraught over the obvious distaste Fiona's father has for her new son-in-law, Shrek seeks out a solution from the Fairy Godmother and gets it in the form of a Happily Ever After™ potion. The potion transforms everyone into what they most desire, but the effects only become permanent if sealed with a kiss before midnight. Of course.

The movie is filled with in-jokes that whiz by at high speed. My wife and I caught jokes that the parents in the audience didn't - especially one where donkey (Eddie Murphy, remember) was framed by palm tress behind him and music that was a throwback to Eddie's Beverly Hills Cop movies. Conversely, while the children laughed at a lot of the fart jokes, there wasn't enough action to keep them entertained the entire time. At various intervals, the audience was audibly restless.

And that's the problem with Shrek 2. Shrek and Fiona's problems sound suspiciously like they're heading for divorce - remember, they're married, not dating - and the parental/new spouse arguments might be a little bit too close to home for some. While Shrek spoofed Disney, Shrek 2 spoofs Hollywood, a spoof that's been done to death.

By far the best part of the movie is Puss-in-Boots, played by Antonio Banderas. Part swashbuckler, part cute little tabby, Puss is hired by the King to kill Shrek. Ignoring for a moment that Fiona's father is trying to kill his son-in-law, Puss steals the show. Never has an animated character so captured the cuteness and sexiness of an actor all rolled up into a ball of fur. In fact, he's so good that...this quote sums it up:

Puss-in-Boots: Pray for mercy from... Puss! - In boots. Fear me, if you dare.
Donkey: I'm sorry, but the position for annoying talking animal has already been taken!

True. But Puss is cuter and funnier. Donkey, while occasionally amusing, is simply not necessary.

Shrek 2 also suffers from not having a lot for the characters to do. Some of Shrek's quips are just plain tired. Even some of the old cast, including Pinocchio, the Big Bad Wolf, the Three Little Pigs, the Three Blind Mice, and the Gingerbread Man are back. The jokes - a new twist on an old fairy tale - no longer apply. Heck, the Gingerbread Man appears in Wal-Mart commercials!

Shrek 2 has enough in-jokes to keep parents entertained. But it's not as good as the original, because much of the original's charm came from being the first to lampoon fairy tales in a Disney-fied society.

Ice Age

Ice Age had the unfortunate timing to be released at the same time as Monsters, Inc. The plots are quite similar: creatures whose livelihood depends on their conflict with humanity accidentally acquire a human child and must return him or her to his home. Monsters, Inc. does it better.

That said, Ice Age tries very hard, and I found myself unwilling to brush it off as just a cheap version of Monsters, Inc. The animation isn't as good. The voice acting isn't as good. The script isn't as punchy or funny. And John Leguizamo is, if this is possible, even more annoying as a sloth.

The animation is good enough to make the characters look like muppets but not so good that you're really drawn into the movie. There are moments of ice reflection and water rippling that scream, "LOOK AT HOW COOL OUR ANIMATION IS" -- and they are oddly disjointed from the rest of the movie's cartoony animation. To Monsters, Inc.'s credit, you never stop and gawk at the graphics in the background even though they're vivid and colorful.

Surprisingly, the best voice acting comes from Ray Romano, of Everybody Loves Raymond fame. His brooding mammoth is compelling and a little sad. There's also a funny ice slide scene that's entertaining. There are also some very sad moments, like when the mammoth stares at a cave painting and relives the death of his family. Which explains why a mammoth is willing to take care of a "pink thing" (the baby) and return him to his family.

And yet, Ice Age does not act on the strength of its convictions. In Monsters, Inc. when the bad guys are acting bad -- they're really bad. They mean to do bad things to children and even though they never pull it off, the audience is afraid that it will actually happen. In Ice Age, the threats should be twice as realistic. Although the movie actually has more violence and danger, it ultimately cops out: the mother of the baby just disappears into a fast moving stream (off camera, no less). Diego, the sabretoothed tiger who realizes he likes his new friends more than his own pack, seems to die and then -- SURPRISE! -- limps onto the scene at the end of the movie to joins his new "herd." Ugh.

In short, Ice Age is a first time effort for a production house that's not as mature as Pixar. Not cute enough, not compelling enough, not funny enough. But close.