Movie Reviews

• Title: Fred Claus
• IMDb: link

Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn) is an immortal schmuck.  The older brother of Santa Claus (Paul Giamatti) has spent his life in the shadow of his famous sibling.  He’s a con artist, a thief, a liar, and an all around unlikable guy.  Needing money for his latest scheme he takes a temporary job in the North Pole working for his brother.

There’s more to the film including a reunion with Fred’s parents (Kathy Bates, Trevor Peacock), an evil efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) trying to put Santa out of business, an elf (John Michael Higgins) with a crush on Santa’s little helper (Elizabeth Banks), a troubled orphan named Slam (Bobb’e J. Thompson), and Fred consistently screwing up his relationship with a woman who is too good for him (Rachel Weisz).

Would you believe, with all these stories, not a single one is interesting?  Yeah, Giamatti is not too bad in the role of Santa (and Miranda Richardson does a tolerable job as his wife), but other than look like Santa there’s nothing for him to do in the film except play the straight man to Vaughn’s antics.

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No Ho-Ho-Ho HereRead More »

• Title: Bee Movie
• IMDb: link

After graduating college a disillusioned Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld) leaves the hive and travels into the outside world.  Barry isn’t ready to buckle down to one job for the rest of his life.  His adventure goes awry, as these things do in movies like this, and Barry finds himself staying with a florist named Vanessa Bloom (Renee Zellweger).  Barry falls hard for the beautiful human and breaks the bee’s taboo never to talk to people.

His friendship with Vanessa leads him to learn of humans consumption of honey, which in turn leads Barry, with the help of his pal Adam (Matthew Broderick) to sue all of humanity for stealing honey.

The film includes many colorful characters Barry meets on his journey, all voiced by well-known actors including Vanessa’s jealous boyfriend (Patrick Warburton), a mosquito named Mooseblood (Chris Rock), the famous Bee Larry King (Larry King), a sneaky Southern attorney (John Goodman), and Ray Liota (playing himself as the owner of a huge honey business).

Although there are a few moments that may make you smile and the film has an important message about the environment and how all living things are tied together, it is also lacking in many areas.  First there are some puzzlers, like why are there so many female bees in the hive?  The Queen Bee is elected?  Why is she called a queen?  I could go on and on about little nagging problems like this but there are bigger fish to fry.  There are no memorable jokes or big laughs, nor does the story ever elevate itself to the level of a feature film.  Instead what we get, though well done, feels like a straight-to-DVD release or something you’d see on Nickelodeon.  While many might enjoy this, mostly young kids, I don’t know how happy parents will be paying $10 a pop for it.

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Bee MovieRead More »