Children’s Movie Reviews

The Princess and the Frog

Tiana (voiced by Anika Noni Rose) has a dream. More than anything, she wants to have her own restaurant in New Orleans, an ambition inspired by her hardworking, gumbo-loving dad (Terrence Howard) and encouraged by her seamstress mother (Oprah Winfrey). After years of waiting tables at two different cafés, she almost has enough money saved up in cans she keeps in her one-room apartment, when she runs into a problem: at a costume party thrown by her best friend, the very rich, very white Charlotte (Jennifer Cody), Tiana meets a frog who tells her it needs just one kiss to be turned into a prince. She agrees, but…
Old Dogs

Less a movie than a series of clamorous set pieces and clumsy jokes, Old Dogs begins with that most banal of plot points, the male midlife crisis. Dan (Robin Williams) and his business partner Charlie (John Travolta) are about to seal a big deal with a Japanese company, when he's visited by an ex-wife, Vicki (Kelly Preston). It appears that a brief, alcohol-inspired marriage produced twins seven years ago, and now she needs a sitter for two weeks. Though it interferes with the presentation schedule, Dan can't say no. Charlie, being Dan's best friend to the end, tags along on a hectic assortment of activities, from…
Planet 51

Planet 51 begins with a clever layering of spoofs. In the first scene, a young couple is scared first by an alien attack, and then by a military unit who attacks the attackers (called "humaniacs"). Not only are all of these characters aliens -- green skinned with googly eyes and rubbery, four-fingered limbs-- but when the camera pulls back to show they are all characters in a movie within the movie, you see that the audience members are all aliens too. When, some minutes later, a unknown spaceship does land in someone's back yard, the visitor is a human astronaut, Captain Chuck Baker (voiced by Dwayne Johnson).
Fantastic Mr. Fox

Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) is definitely foxish. Perpetually restless and inherently sly, he likes to break into chicken houses and dig holes, scurry over hill and dale and cause trouble. In Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson's marvelous expansion of Roald Dahl's perfectly lovely 1970 book, this behavior is cast as immature, as Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) hopes to rein in her husband's scampishness, a point she makes clear as the film starts, when, in the middle of a chicken house caper, she informs him that she's pregnant. He needs to be responsible, support his new family (by writing a local newspaper column), and…
A Christmas Carol

The new, performance-captured Christmas Carol is two movies in one, one quite gloomy, the other theme-park-ridey hectic. Neither comes close to the holiday-cheery fare offered up by either the Muppets or Bill Murray.
Astro Boy

Astro Boy (Freddie Highmore) is a robot with rockets in his legs, weapons for arms, and a literally sharp hairdo. Created by the brilliant and slightly selfish Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage), Astro believes that he’s a real boy, because he carries Tenma’s dead son’s memories… and oh yes, the doctor neglects to tell him he’s actually powered by a glowing blue power source in his chest. It doesn’t help that this “core” is also wanted by the diabolical General Stone (Donald Sutherland) for use in a war machine. Discovered by the evil Stone, Astor is forced to leave floating…
Where the Wild Things Are

Inspired by Maurice Sendak’s beloved 1963 children’s book, this movie begins inside the head of nine-year-old Max (Max Records). As he’s chasing his dog through the house, the shots are close, hand-held, and fast; the soundtrack is percussive and breathless; and the behavior, while energetically giddy and childish, isn’t exactly “good.” Max is both a troublemaker and troubled, missing his absent father (who has left him an award encouraging him to think of the world as his own), resentful of his teenaged sister Claire (Pepita Emmerichs), and devoted to his mother (Catherine…
Shorts

Shorts is yet another romp through the gleefully childish imagination of Robert Rodriguez. Like Spy Kids, it offers up a family that needs to spend more time together—though the members don’t know it yet. Toby (Jimmy Bennett) is feeling lonely and sad, ignored by his workaholic parents (Jon Cryer and Leslie Mann) and older sister Stacey (Kat Dennings). As Toby—nicknamed Toe—tells it, the story is fragmented and out of order, essentially a collection of short chapters, stitched together as he remembers what he’s left out, fast-forwarding or rewinding as he goes
Bandslam

Bandslam is an energetic, often clever high school musical sort of movie. It tweaks the formula just enough to seem original. As the movie begins, Will Burton (Gaelan Connell) and his mother Karen (Lisa Kudrow) move to Lodi, New Jersey, where he’ll be facing yet another new set of classmates. It’s a routine Will knows too well, feeling lonely and like a misfit. This time, he meets two intriguing girls right away: sweet, well-read, and gothy Sa5m (Vanessa Hudgeons), who informs him “the 5 is silent,” and boisterously self-confident former cheerleader Charlotte (Alyson Michalka). Immediately…
Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

Hayao Miyazaki’s delightful new movie follows the unusual relationship between five-year-old Sosuke (voiced in this English language version by the Jonas Brothers’ younger brother Frankie) and a goldfish named Ponyo (Miley Cyrus’ little sister Noah). Normally, Susuke spends his days at preschool or visiting with the clients at the senior citizens’ home where his mother Lisa (Tiny Fey) works. They live in a house that overlooks the sea, where Sosuke sails a toy boat that looks like the cargo ship piloted by his dad (Matt Damon). One morning, he saves Ponyo, who has her oddly human-looking head…