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We've got two movies for kids of all ages this month . . .
"MONSTERS INC."
The latest entry from Disney's Pixar, Monsters Inc. is the story of Mike
and Sully, working in the land of monsters, scaring kids at night to power
their city with the energy generated by children's screams. Unfortunately,
things go awry when a human child gets into their world and things go
haywire as all the monsters believe human children are toxic to monsters.
Although this movie lacks some of the spark from the original Toy Story
series, it's still wildly entertaining and bears the mark of imagination
that only Pixar can bring to an animated feature. One can clearly tell
that computer animation is moving by leaps and bounds from one year to
the next as the textures of the monster fur and skin stand out so
realistically. There's still something to be said about creating a human
face... Even in movies like Final Fantasy, there's still something missing
to make the facial features quite realistic.
And for fans of prior Pixar movies, you might enjoy picking some of the
elements from prior movies strewn here and there as tributes. A fun film
for kids of all ages.
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S/PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
Having just read the book, I couldn't help but notice the shortcomings as
far as all the details the book had to offer. Nevertheless, this one is
definitely one of those rare films that follows the feel and spirit of
it's original pulp predecessor.
For those of you unfamiliar with the story of Harry Potter, ( And I'm
sure there aren't many of you by now ), he is a young boy who lives a
dreary childhood under the guardianship of his all too abusive aunt and
uncle, only to find out when he reaches the age of 11 that he is, in fact,
the famous son of two wizards that were killed when he was a baby and
that he has a small fortune in "Wizard's Gold" awaiting him to begin his
tutelage at "Hogwart's", the school for witchcraft and wizardry.
Although it was painful as a reader to watch the things that were
removed, such as the whole sequence involving how Hagrid's dragon is
illegal and they have to sneak it out of the school, or just how
important the house cup and the reason professor McGonnagal is so
"helpful" in awarding them points, I can understand why these were
omitted. The movie is already 2 1/2 hours long with all the detail they
decided to keep IN the movie ( And it is not a butt-numbing 2 1/2 hours, I
assure you, it's not a Titanic :) ), so it's understandable that they
would cut out things where needed, lest it become a 3 1/2 hour movie.
Nevertheless, the detail rendered was definitely sufficient, and it makes
for a rich magical world in which children of all ages can be enthralled
for that period of time, and get lost with the whimsical characters found
therein. Even my 3 year old was hypnotized by it.
The Quidditch game was comparable to a "Harry Potter" version of the
episode I "Pod Race", and the final trials to get to the stone were just
marvelously handled ( even though they changed a few things, and
omitted one of the trials ). All in all, this was a great movie that will be a
classic when our kids grow up, just we like consider Star Wars and The
Goonies to be classics ;). A word of advice, although I always think that
reading the book first is better ( and the book in general IS ALWAYS
better ), I would recommend not reading it RIGHT BEFORE seeing the
movie . . . you will tend to notice the differences too clearly.
Now on to The Lord Of the Rings next month!!! I expect I won't be alone
reviewing that one in THIS webzine :) . . .
Stephane Morrell
Laurier CIM Group
MCSE,CCA
-Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
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