Enchanted

In a Nutshell: Very cute, very sweet, quite funny, perfectly cast. Definitely worth seeing.

Quick Plot: The evil queen of an animated fairy tale kingdom decides to get rid of her rival for the throne by transporting her to the real world. How does such a sweet naive girl manage in modern day New York? Remarkably well, as it turns out.

In Detail: This was such a cute movie. It takes classic Disney archetypes and shows how ridiculous they can seem when compared to reality, sometimes with hilarious results. But it also emphasizes why having those archetypes at all can be important. And it definitely shows that Disney has a sense of humor about itself! The scene with the chipmunk trying to tell the Prince what was going on had both of us just dying. BTW, for anyone trying to figure out why the Prince looks familiar but can't place him, he's Scott/Cyclops (Jean's boyfriend with the laser eyes) from X-Men. Yes really! Speaking of which, all of the casting was simply perfection. I don't think they could have done a better job with any of the parts. One extra bit of casting trivia: The receptionist at the law firm, who has to watch Giselle during Patrick Dempsey's meeting, is Jodi Benson. Think you don't know who that is? Of course you do; she's the voice of The Little Mermaid! Anyway, I really did like this movie, more than DH, that's for sure. He liked it okay; I certainly enjoyed it more than he did. Which actually brings me to my primary criticism: it is definitely a girl movie (little girls and big girls). I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just something you should be aware of. Not much in there for boys, young or old. Still, definitely worth seeing if you're a Disney fan. And huge kudos to Alan Menken (and Stephen Schwartz) for doing such amazing work, as always. You'll be humming the music for weeks. And just so everyone who has seen the movie hates me equally: "How do you know that she loves you?" Feel the calypso beat! That song is almost as bad as It's a Small World.

Will I Buy It? Not sure. As I said, not much there for boys, so I'm not sure how much we'd watch it. But do see it!

Addendum: Every once in a while, a rare film comes along that I originally said I would not buy, and I change my mind. This is one of those. The more we watch this movie, the more we fall in love with it. It is now one of our favorites, and even the child likes it. We haven't bought it yet, but I promise you, we will.

Emma

In a Nutshell: Sweet, good, but not great. The right style, but it lacked something I can't quite put my finger on.

Quick Plot: A well-born Victorian lady becomes so involved while playing cupid for her friends that she almost misses out on love herself.

In Detail: Not much detail to give, really. It was a quite good film, very sweet, very Victorian (Edwardian?), though I hear it does waver a bit from the source material (don't all films?). It was rather early in Gwyneth Paltrow's career, 2 years before Shakespeare in Love, I believe, and it shows. She certainly has blossomed. That British accent of hers has been perfection from the start, though (you *do* know she is American, right?). There is even a small appearance by Ewan McGregor, and he sings! Really needed to cut the hair, though. LOL I am not a big Toni Collette fan, though, and this film didn't help her any in my estimation. The surprise was seeing Alan Cumming in an essentially straight role. No creepy kiddie show host, no psychotic computer genius, no midnight blue makeup and tail; just a very understated performance. (Extra points if you can name those three films.) A very sweet film, worth seeing if you like this sort of genre.

Will I Buy It? I don't think so. There are too many other Victorian rom-coms out there that are much better.

Eragon

In a Nutshell: I really wanted to like this movie, and I think kids might (though one of the kinds of bad guys were really creepy to me), but I just really didn't. Very disappointing.

Quick Plot: Can one boy accept his destiny as the last of the Dragon Riders and save his world from the evil king?

In Detail: You don't really need me to tell you the plot do you? It is Star Wars blended with Lord of the Rings on dragons. There, no need for you to see the movie now. How can a movie with this much potential be so.... boring?! Seriously, it was boring. I could not have been more surprised. I looked at my watch 3-4 times in the first 30 minutes. Not a good start. And everything was so disjointed. It's like someone went through and ripped out "the important pages" from the book and just filmed those, almost like a checklist. Voice over for extremely brief backstory, check. Introduce villain, check. Introduce pretty girl, check. Introduce hero, check. Introduce mentor, check. Introduce dragon, check. Circumstances send hero out on quest, check. There was no depth of any kind. The film's primary redeeming feature is Robert Carlyle, and he just isn't in it enough to make up for the rest of the film. Not even Jeremy Irons is enough to rescue it for me! And John Malkovich is just... distracting. They should have given Jeremy Irons *his* part and found someone else for the mentor, IMHO. I was just not impressed at all, except with the effects which were amazing. If I didn't know better, I'd think they'd hired a real dragon! There were times when the "real" dragon seemed to be on a blue screen with a computer-animated rider, but still, she was simply stunning. Rent it if you must.

Will I Buy It? I don't care to see it again.

The Emperor's Club

In a Nutshell: A perfectly fine movie. Not as good as Dead Poets, IMO.

Quick Plot: Chronicles two slices of the life of Mr. Hundert (Kevin Klein), a history professor at an all-boys Catholic school, and his interactions with students, including one who is more interested in getting into trouble, and taking his classmates down with him.

In Detail: It was quite good, if mostly predictable. (Remember, I don't mind predictable movies, but this one was more predictable than most. I could say lines before they got there.) I did not find it to be as profound, as moving, or as dramatic as Dead Poets Society, for me personally. I wish it had focused a little more on some of the other boys in the group (as opposed to just the main one). Perhaps there was more that got cut. It made the points it wanted to make without browbeating you (except in one place), but it just didn't strike me the way DPS did. Might have something to do with the fact that I consider DPS almost life-changing for me in some ways. Compared with that, how could Emperor's Club possibly measure up? :) But even DH agreed that it was not as good. Still good; not a bad rental.

Will I Buy It? No, it wasn't meaningful enough to me.