Children’s Movie Reviews

The Last Airbender

Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) are like a lot of other siblings: they look after each other, like to explore, and yes, they argue sometimes. But they’re also very different from most human kids. For one thing, they’re members of the Southern Water Tribe, residing at the South Pole, and for another thing, Katara is a Waterbender.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

As The Twilight Saga: Eclipse begins, Bella (Kristen Stewart) has made up her mind. About to graduate from high school, she’s determined to become a vampire like her boyfriend Edward (Robert Pattinson). She’s remarkably stubborn on this point, despite her beloved’s repeated cautions that vampires are in fact eternally gloomy, pained, and soulless (this as he glitters and sighs and looks very soulful indeed). Still, in order to sate his own overwhelming determination to posses Bella, he agrees to what he calls a “compromise,” namely, he’ll change her if she marries him.
Grown Ups

On Fourth of July weekend, five childhood friends are attending a funeral. Oh wait, that doesn’t sound like much fun. Let’s start again: five childhood friends use the passing of their beloved middle school basketball coach as a reason to reunite and remember his advice, that they “play the game of life the same way” they played their big championship victory. That way, he urges them back in 1978, “when the final buzzer of life goes off, you’ll have no regrets.”
Toy Story 3

It’s good to be toys. At least that’s the first thought offered up in Toy Story 3, as Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) and Jessie (Joan Cusack) chase down a runaway train full of orphans (played by a squad of green- and pink-haired trolls). And just when the situation looks most dire, yet another toy—Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) booms in to rescue everyone. It’s fun, it’s rambunctious, and it looks pretty endless. When you’re a toy and played with, you can be heroic and happy every day. Even when you play a villain, you know it’s a game, and you’ll be back into the joyful…
The Karate Kid

Eleven-year-old Dre (Jaden Smith) is miserable as The Karate Kid begins. He and his mother (Taraji P. Henson) are moving from Detroit, the only home he’s ever known, to Beijing. She’s been transferred for work and, more importantly, as she puts it, they’re going to start a new life, following the death of his father.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

The Prince of Persia lives to leap. From rooftops, across alleyways, down sand dunes, into crevasses — he throws himself again and again into big slow motiony air, his arms outstretched and legs churning, his face blurred and his destination always achieved. Jake Gyllenhaal is the video game hero made flesh! Or at least, digitized.
Shrek Forever After

Now that he’s living happily ever after, Shrek (voiced by Mike Meyers) is thinking twice. He’s tired of being everyone’s favorite ogre and frustrated by the routine of his life with Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and their farty, gurgly triplets. His feelings are summarized neatly in an opening montage of repeated scenes: Shrek diapers babies, feeds babies, shares play-dates with Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and his half-dragon kiddies. At the same time, he yearns for long-lost previous life, when humans feared his roar, when he spent most of his time alone—wallowing in mud baths, scaring all his neighbors,…
Robin Hood

Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) is just a “common archer” at the start of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood. He’s also a team player, not an outlaw at all, fighting alongside King Richard the Lionhearted (Danny Huston) in the Crusades. But, as the 12th century comes to an end and the body count rises, Robin is feeling uneasy with his lot. He’s good at killing people, but maybe, as he tells the king, their cause is not so just and their deeds not so pure. Maybe, as Robin puts it, their pursuit of power in the name of god has actually left them “godless.”
Iron Man 2

The return of Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) begins with a bang. He jumps from a plane, hurtles through the night sky over Flushing Meadows Park, and lands with a boom on… a stage. Iron Man is a show, complete with dancing girls, explosions, and cheering fans—all celebrating the peace he’s imposed on the planet and oh yes, the smart-alecky genius of Tony Stark, the millionaire who invented, protected, and now totally is Iron Man.
Furry Vengeance

Dan (Brendan Fraser) means well. He’s also clueless, a point underlined when he first appears in Furry Vengeance, stepping out the front door of his big white house, coffee cup in hand. “Ah, nature!” he announces, just as the camera cuts to show his view -- a subdivision in the making. Yes, there are lawns and a few shrubs amid the construction, but it’s plain that Dan doesn’t have much understanding of “nature.”